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PRESRNTlOn BY 





A REPLY 



TO PROFESSOR BOURNE'S 



"TOE 
WHITMAN 
LEGEND." 



By MYRON EELLS, D. D. 



2S GENTS A CORY 

FOR SALE BY 

THE STATESMAN PUBLISHINQ 00., 
Walla Walla, Washington. 



A REPLY 




To Professor Bourne's 



"The Wfiitman Legend'' 



rBYr 



MYRON EELLS, D. D. 



25 cents a Copy 



WALLA WALLA, WASHINGTON 
THE STATESMAN PRINTING COMPANY 

190Z 



PREFATORY 



S. W. Moss, of Oregon City, author of the Prairie Flower, 
was one of the immigrants of 1842. He was a man who cared 
at that time but little for religion, and less for missions. In fact 
he hardly cared to become acquainted with a missionary, for he 
thought that anybody who was foolish enough to become a 
missionary, especially to the Indians, was not the kind of 
man with whom he wished to have anything to do. Hence 
when he arrived near Dr. Whitman's station In 1842, he went 
rather past it, without going to it. But it was found that his 
party needed some provisions or things which could be ob- 
tained at the Doctor's, and he was detailed to go and procure 
them. When he met the Doctor however he found him a 
very different man from what he expected a missionary to the 
Indians to be, was much pleased with him and their acquaint- 
ance ripened into real friendship, so that when the Doctor was 
at Oregon City he made the house of Mr. Moss his home. When 
Mr. Moss in advanced years, bent with age, was asked what 
he thought of Dr. Whitman as an American, he straightened 
up his bent form, his eyes brightened much, so that they 
spoke as well as his lips, and he said with emphasis and life, 
"He was an American of Americans." 



P. 

Coni;rtsslOflri 
(;«mmitte«t. 




A Reply to Professor Bourne's 

^ ^^THE WHITMAN LEGEND' ' 

o By MTRON EELLS, D. D. 

*" Member of the Washington State Historical Society; Honorary 
Member of the Oregon Historical Society; Author of Indian 
Missions on the Pacific Coast, Ten Years at Skokomish, 
Father Eells, Life of S. H. Marsh. D. D., History of the 
Congregational Association of Oregon and Washington, 
The Twana, Clallam and Chemakum Indians, and various 
pamphlets. 

Vol. IV THE WHITMAN COLLEGE QUARTERLY No. 3 

[Entered at the Post Office at Wa'la Walla as second class matter.] 

IiS^ THE American Historical Eeview for Jan- 
uary, 1001, is a paper by Prof. E. G. Bourne, of 
Yale University, entitled, "The Legend of Mar- 
cus Whitman," read by him the preyious December at 
the meeting of the American Historical Association. 
In the Annual Report of the Historical Association 
for 1900, Vol. 1, pages 219-236, is a discussion of the 
above paper by Prof. W, I. Marshall, of Chicago. In 
September, 1901, Prof. Bourne published a volume 
entitled "Essays in Historical Criticism.''* In this 
his paper is revised and enlarged so as to cover 107 
pages. These gentlemen attempt to prove that the 
story that Dr. Whitman saved Oregon or any part of 

♦This is one of a series of volumes published by the Pro- 
fessors and Instructors of Yale University, "as a partial indi- 
cation of the character of the studies in which the University 
teachers are engaged." 



4 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

it to the United States, or even dispelled any ignor- 
ance about it, or that he went east in the winter of 
1842-3 for this purpose, or that he did anything worth 
mentioning to stimulate the emigration of 1843 is 
without foundation. It is perfectly proper that the 
other side of the question be heard. 

In this pamphlet the writer will discuss mainly 
the later essay of Prof. Bourne, it being evidently' the 
result of his mature study, together with Prof. Marsh- 
all's pa])er. The figures in parentheses refer to 
the pages in their publications. 

In 1883 the writer published a' pamphlet en- 
titled "Marcus Whitman, M. D. Proofs of his work in 
saving Oregon to the United States and in promoting 
the immigration of 1843." This will be referred to as 
"Eells' Whitman Pamphlet." 



A short statement of Dr. Whitman's work from 
1842 to 1843 is that an order from theAmerican Board 
to discontinue his station and that of Mr. Spalding 
had been received by him in the fall of 1842; there 
vras need felt by the missionaries in Oregon of Chris- 
tian families to settle near the Indians so as to set 
them a good example and take from the missionaries 
most of the secular work ; that Dr. Whitman also 
learned that influences were at work in the east, es- 
pecially at Washington, which might cause the United 
States to lose Oregon, because (according to these 
representations) it was of very little value, and it was 
impossible to take emigrant wagons to the Columbia ; 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 5 

that hence the Doctor went east during the winter 
1S42-3, in company with A. L. Lovejoy most of the 
way; went to Washington where he found real dan- 
ger, and where he gave such information to President 
Tyler, Daniel Webster, secretary of state, and others 
that he obtained the promise that these negotiations 
should be suspended until he should prove that he 
could lead an emigration of wagons through ; that 
he did all he could to stimulate people to join the 
emigration already forming and that in this line he 
accomplished much; that he went to Boston and at- 
tended to the missionary business, and then that he 
led the emigration through, thus saving Oregon 
or an important part of it to the United States. 
But it is stated that the national object was 
the chief one which induced the Doctor to go when he 
did. and that had he gone solely for the other rea- 
sons, it would have not been until the next spring. 

This pamphlet will be divided into four parts: 
(1) A discussion of some points in the publications 
of Messrs. Bourne and Marshall which affect their re- 
liability and that of their arguments; (2) points in 
which the writer agrees with them; (3) points in 
which he differs from them, (4) the evidence to prove 
that Dr. Whitman's intent was to save Oregon or a 
part of it ; that he did do it ; that there was danger of 
its being traded to England ; that the story was known 
long previous to its publication in the SacramentD 
Union in 1864; that Dr. Whitman did much to pro- 
mote the emigration of 1S43; and that his leading 
that emigration through was a most important 
event in saving Oresron. 



6 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

I. A discussion of some points in the piihlica- 
tions of these icriters ivhich affect their reUability 
and that of their arguments. 

(a) A criticism of some of the expressions 
which they use as arguments. Prof. Bourne uses the 
following : "deceptive confirmation," referring to Dr. 
C. Eells' letter of 1866 (p 26) ; "fictitious interviews" 
with Webster and Tyler (26) ; "frenzied statement" 
(27), and "hodge podge" (30) referring to Mr. Spald- 
ing's pamphlet; ''rehash of Spalding and Gray over- 
laden with much irrelevant disquisition" (41) ; 
"such turhid sources" as Spalding and Gray (40) ; 
"intermingling inextricably perversions of fact with 
pure fictions, and enormously distorting the history" 
of Oregon, referring to Barrows's Oregon (40) ; "spe- 
cious apologetics" and his "superficial and disingenu- 
ous method," referring to Dr. Craighead's book 
(45-46) ; "untrustworthy as history," referring to 
Dr. Nixon's book (47) ; "the advocate and not the 
historian," referring to Dr. Mowry (50) ; "flimsy evi- 
dence" (50) ; "constantly garbles and interpo- 
lates his quotations," referring to Mr. Spalding ( 61 ) ; 
"vindictiveness" of Mr. Spalding (64) ; "Spalding's 
fauxpas" (65) ; "Dr. Craighead has the hardihood to 
write" (78) ; "stamp or hall mark" of Spalding's in- 
vention (82) ; "fallaciously summarized" by Myron 
Eells (96) ; "imaginative perversion" of Barrows 
(195). 

Similarly Prof. Marshall writes "totally worth- 
less book" and "throwing together his Oregon,"^ 
"never in any proper sense written," referring to Dr. 
Barrows's book (222) ; the "fool friends of Dr. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 7 

Whitman," referriug to Messrs. Barrows, Nixon, 
Craighead, M. Eells, Laurie, Mowry and Edwards 
(291) ; "small souled and narrow minded folly" 
(291) ; "not above a third or fourth rate man," re- 
ferring to Dr. Whitman (232) ; "fabrications of al- 
leged authorities" (234) . Was it strange that Profes- 
sor Fiske wrote him, "I think the force of your argu- 
ments would be enhanced if your style of expression 
were now and then a little less vehement?" (230). 

But in this they only follow the man whom they 
so much admire and quote, Hon. Elwood Evans, 
who in 1885 used these expressions "false claim," 
"falsehood," "unmitigated falsehood," "glaringly 
false statement," "venerable g•^ntlemen .... 
who for the nonce doffed their saintly calling," "so 
called reverends," "doughty champions," "melange 
of absurdity, nonsense, fiction and falsehood," "rever- 
end champions of a fable," "baseless fabrications,"' 
"interject his extravaganza," "wriggling policy of the 
Eells," "slanders of the dead," "Gulliver, Munchau- 
sen and Quixote."* 

Another person whom Prof. Bourne quotes, P. 
W. Gillette (106-110), calls the statements that have 
been used to convince people that Dr. Whitman saved 
Oregon, "fulsome stuff and stupid lies."* 

Bancroft also uses similar language, calling W. 
H. Gray, "the Great untruthful and whilom mission 
builder."* 

Now every time that these writers use the 
word fiction, fable, legend, fictitious, and the like in 

•Oregonian of March 20 and May 21, 1885. 

♦Oregonian, February 26, 1900. 

♦Bancroft, Hist. Northwest Coast, Vol. 2., p. 537. 



8 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

regard to the story, do they not beg the question? for 
the very question under discussion is whether the story 
is a legend or true. Calling it false does not make it so. 
If a man has a case in court in Avhich his neighbor is 
charged with stealing, is it proper for him to call him 
a thief until it is so decided by the court, and if he 
is a gentleman will he do so? He may say he believes 
him to be a tliief, but to say that he is one before the 
court decides it to be so is simply begging the ques- 
tion. And in this case, to the writer it seems that if 
these persons were simply to say that they believe the 
story to be a legend or fiction, it would be far more 
the part of gentlemanly historians than to say that 
it is so and call nam^s, while the question is under 
discussion. 

At least the writer aclmowledges that he shall 
not try to cope with the professors and honorable gen- 
tlemen in such arguments. They remind him how- 
ever of a statement said to have been made by Dr. 
Lyman Beecher, that when in preaching he had the 
least to say, he hulloaed the loudest. In the same ar- 
ticle in which Gov. Evans used his he said, "I aspire 
to no sanctity of character. I am not a church man. 
nor had I ever the benefit of a Sunday school train- 
ing." Whether the other persons can excuse them- 
selves on the same ground the writer cannot say. 
He prefers to follow the advice of Prof. Fiske to Prof. 
Marshall, "It seems to me that there is great value in 
a quiet form of statement, even approaching to un- 
derstatement, for it gives the reader a chance to do a 
little swearing at the enemy on his own account."* 

*Prof. Marshall's Pamphlet, p. 230. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 9 

(b) T]ic iifte oftentimes of the icord '^ prohablif 
mid its sijuoni/ms as an argninent. In this too 
Prof. Bourne follows his predecessors of whom he 
speaks so highly, Ehvood Evans, and Mrs. F. F. Vic- 
tor. Gov. Evans said that it was most improhahlc 
that Dr. Whitman asked the approval of his fellow 
workers on a journey to save Oregon, that it was im- 
prohuhle that he pledged tlie President that he would 
show that Oregon was accessible by wagons or that 
the President promised to await the result. When 
Gov. A. Kamsey of Minnesota stated that he saw Dr. 
Whitman in Washington in 18-13, Gov. Evans thought 
that he probably saw Rev. Jason Lee, who was there 
in 1811, and Mrs. Victor thought he probably saw Dr. 
E. White who was there in 1812. 

Prof. Bourne says that the other witnesses be- 
sides Mr. Spalding probably derived other features of 
their evidence from him (8) ; that Dr. Atkinson 
could hardly have escaped knowledge of the story had 
it been known in Oregon before 1865* (18) ; that if 
Anson Dart had heard of it from Mr. Walker he could 
hardly have failed to note it in his general report 

(19) ; that one is led to the intrinsically probable 
conclusion that Amant derived certain of his knowl- 
edge from the Catholic missionaries (22) ; Dr. Bar- 
rows seems to have withstood the temptation to con- 
sult the letters of the Oregon missionaries in Boston 

(40) ; the reader will not easily avoid the conclusion 



*Dr. Atkinson says that for some years before 1865 it had 
been in his mind as a great historical fact. Oregonian, May 
21, 1885. 



10 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

that P. B. Whitman consulted Gray's History to re- 
fresh his memory (66) ; the story that any incident 
occurred at Port Walla Walla in 1842 that affected 
Dr. Whitman's departure could not have been true, 
because Rev. C. Eells did not hear of it* (73) ; it is 
probable that after forty years John Tyler, jr.'s recol- 
lection of Whitman was more or less affected by Bar- 
row's narratives (81) ; it is nearly certain that John 
Tyler saw Dr. White in Washington and not Dr. 
Whitman (81) ; "it is probable that some of Dr. 
White's speeches to promote the emigration in 1842. 
reached the elder Zachary," instead of anything from 
Dr. Whitman (although the younger Zachary said 
that it was because of the representations of Dr. 
Whitman) (95) ; that Mrs. Carey, who said that she 
came to Oregon because of a pamphlet written by Dr. 
Whitman was presumably a young girl.* (96). At 
last liowever Professor Bourne drops all probablys 
and says 

"the recollections of those who were children or youth in 1843 
that their parents were influenced by Whitman's articles or 
pamphlets all refer to Dr. White's efforts in 1842" (96) ; 

which is as much as to say "I know better than 
any of you what caused your parents to go to Oregon, 



*Mr. Eells lived 175 miles from there and was not there 
again for a long time. 

*The writer obtained this evidence from Mrs. Carey and 
it is the first time he ever heard that she was a young girl in 
1843. It is a supposition of Prof. Bourne, based on no evidence. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 11 

although I never saw your parents or Dr. Whitman 
or Dr. AVhite, or lived in Oregon." 

"I feel pretty certain that the speech [of the Indians at St. 
Louis in 1833] was invented by Mr. Spaulding" (105). 

These are all written by a man who denies state- 
ments of witnesses made from twenty-five to forty 
years after the events took place, because they are 
not scientific. They remind the writer of a book en- 
titled "Historic Doubts as to Napoleon Bonaparte." 
It was intended as a satire on the doubts which some 
have expressed as to the works and existence of 
Christ. In it the attempt is made to show that many 
of the acts which it was claimed that Napoleon did 
were very improbable and that those who testified 
about them were deceived, mistaken or unreliable, and 
from such reasoning we may conclude that it is not 
probable that Napoleon ever lived. Now it is not de- 
nied that Napoleon did many improbable things, yet 
the world will believe that he lived and did them, 
and will not be led to believe the contrary because of 
the improbability of his acts. 

(c) Twice Professor Bourne refers to the 
"crushing attack" of Mrs. Victor and Elwood Evans 
in 1884-5 (36, 45). How crushing it was may be 
seen from the Professor's own statements, for he 
speaks of "the survival if not victory of the fiction" 
(36) ; and after speaking of the controversy of that 
time quotes a sentence written hj M. Eells, "We felt 
that we had gained the victory". Prof. Bourne adds, 
"The feeling was justified by the event. The real 



12 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

spread of the le,:^end, its acceptance by scholars of rep- 
utation, dates from the period of this controversy" 
(40). He refers to over thirty books which adopted 
it; to many newspapers who spread it before hun- 
dreds of thousands of readers; to the fact that hun- 
dreds of pulpits proclaimed it; and that at the vote 
in 1900 as to whose names should be inscribed on the 
Hall of Fame, Dr. Whitman received eighteen out of 
a possible ninety-eight votes, as one of the greatest 
Americans, ranking equally with W. L. Garrison, 
Wendell Phillips, and James Monroe, and surpass- 
ing Chief Justice Taney, T. Benton, S. P. Chase and 
Wintield Scott. 

Again he says (42) 

"The result has been that more people know of the Qctitious 
historj- than the true facts;" 

and adds 



"Whether the stream can be returned to its own channel and 
the history of the Oregon question be restored to its original 
outlines as they existed before 1S65 is open to question"; (53). 



and 



"to judge from the past the prophecy of Rev. W. Barrows iu 
1SS3, and the modest proposal of J. Wilder Fairbank in 1901. 
are quite as likely to attain realization, as the vox clamantis 
of criticism is to get a respectful hearing" (54). 



Such was the result of the crushing at- 
tack by Mrs. Victor and Elwood Evans, ac- 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 13 

cording to Prof. Bourne. Surely it was a 
crusldng attack that did not crush. In fact 
it did not wholly crush Prof. Bourne. On page 104 
he gives a summary of Mr. Evans' conclusions in 1884 
in which are five points, and the Professor fully disa- 
grees with ]Mr. Evans in regard to two of them, name- 
ly, that there is no evidence that Dr. AYhitman visited 
Washington City during the Spring of 1843 ; and that 
his exclusive purpose was to secure the rescinding by 
the American Board of Foreign Missions of the order 
of 1841 to abandon the southern stations of Wai-i-lat- 
pu and Lapwai, for Prof. Bourne says "his business 
in Washington was to urge government measures to 
make emigration to Oregon easier and safer" (99). 

(d) Certain strange statements of these ivriters. 
Prof. Bourne (27), Prof. Marshall (227), and Elwood 
Evans in the Tacoma Ledger of January 16, 1885> 
say that the reason of the invention of the legend (as 
they call it) was that according to treaty, the Hud- 
son's Bay company were to receive pa^^ for their prop- 
erty in Oregon, that the^^ claimed over five million 
dollars (only however receiving $650,000) and it 
made the American Board or its missionary angry 
to think that that company was getting so much while 
the American Board was receiving nothing for all 
it had done and lost. Onlv Prof. Bourne refers to 
any authority for this. He refers to Mr. Spalding's 
Executive Document, pp. 56-59, 70, 78-80. Having 
examined this the Avriter finds no mention made in 
regard to the claims of the Hudson's Baj' Company 
whatever, much less of this being the reason of Mr. 



14 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

Spalding writing the story. As a resident of the Pa- 
cific coast for over fifty years, intimately acquainted 
with the old missionaries, son of the one who held the 
power of attorney for the American Board in regard 
to its claims on the Pacific Coast, he can say that he 
never heard of the claims of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany having anything to do in the remotest degree 
with the claim that Dr. Whitman saved Oregon, except 
from these gentlemen, and would request them to 
prove it, and to prove it better than by referring to 
an old pamphlet, of which but few are in existence 
to which anyone can refer, but which contains noth- 
ing to support the assertion. 

But like the false witnesses who appeared to 
give evidence against Christ at his trial before the 
high priest, whose "witness agreed not together," so it 
is in the present case. Prof. Bourne says that it 
was Mr. Spalding who invented the legend, angry at 
the claims of the Hudson's Bay Company, while Mr. 
Evans says that it was Rev. S. B. Treat, D. D., Secre- 
tary of the American Board, or the "Great Treat" as 
he calls him, and plainly states that he does not be- 
lieve it was Mr. Spalding; that Dr. Treat then sent 
to the Oregon missionaries to verify it, and "they 
rushed hastily to the front, without regard to rhyme 
or reason, or consistencies of date or facts or circum- 
stances to improve upon Treat's conception." But 
Prof. Bourne (54) maintains that the other witnesses 
to sustain the invention of Mr. Spalding agree so har- 
moniously that "every single extant version is a 
branch from that parent stem." 

Again Prof. Bourne refers to Dr. Laurie who 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNS. 15 

pars in regard to the order to discontinue the sta- 
tions of Dr. Whitman and ^[r. Spahiinf? that he will 
not say how it was but will let Dr. Whitman speak 
for himself; after which Dr. Laurie quotes Dr. Whit- 
man's letter. Prof. Bourne adds "Why Dr. Laurie 
refrains from saying 'how it was' will appear later" 
(38). But nowhere afterwards can the writer find 
any reference to this or Dr. Laurie. 

Likewise in regard to the evidence of Messrs. 
Geiger, C. Eells, P. B. Whitman, Hinman, Parker and 
Mrs. E. Walker, Prof. Bourne says that it will he ex- 
amined in connection with that of Messrs. Gray and 
Spalding, but nowhere can be found any such exaiiii- 
nation of any of the last three (37). 

Again "Greenhow's exhaustive history was being 
distributed as a public document" early in 1843 (85), 
but (80) he says, Greenhow's Preface was "dated 
February 1844."* 

He writes that for Dr. J. R. Wilson to say that 
Saint de Amant declared his belief that Whitman 
was instrumental in saving a valuable portion of the 
Northwest to the United States is deceptive (21), but 
gives Amant's writing which says that "Dr. Whit- 
man became a very active agent of the American in- 
terests and contributed in no small degree to promote 
annexation" (106). Again he says that for Presi- 
dent Penrose to use the words of Eells and Spalding 
in translating Amant to prove that he was familiar 



♦The fact was that the preface was thus dated, and the 
book published in 1845, but a smaller edition of less than half 
the size, not the exhaustive history, had been circulated as a 
public document. 



16 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

with their contentions, i. e., of the missionaries, 
would not be defensible in a trained scholar (22). 
But the sentence even as translated, which was 
never called a literal translation, was not used to 
prove that Amant was familiar with their contentions^ 
but that the story did not originate withMr. Spalding 
about 1865. 

Further he says, "The original account of Whit- 
man's journey, its causes, purpose and results was 
first published in a series of articles in the Pacific 
. ... in the fall of 1865" (8); while (101) he 
refers to "the earliest printed version of Whitman's 
political services, in behalf of Oregon, published in 
the Sacramento Union, Nov. 16, 1864." 

He states the position of Elwood Evans who says 
that Dr. AAliitman's "exclusive ynirpose was to have 
the Board rescind the order to abandon Lapwai and 
Wai-i-lat-pu" (38), and says that this was "solidly es- 
tablished" by Mr. Evans (39). Prof. Bourne says 
also that this was his real purpose (55). But after- 
wards he says that before Dr. Whitman left Oregon 
he contemplated going to Washington according to 
the statements of Mrs. Whitman and Dr. V\liite (75), 
and the reason of this Avas that "if emigration on a 
grand scale was to begin the government ought to 
protect it and establish supply stations" (99-100). 
Nearly half a page is filled with a description of his 
work in regard to this (77-8). The writer has been 
somewhat troubled to learn exactly Prof. Bourne's 
position on this point, but from what he can gather 
is inclined to the opinion that if the Professor were 
asked if he thought that Dr. Whitman's exclusive 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 17 

purpose for going east was to save the mission he 
would say, yes; but on being further questioned 
would say, that the Doctor also intended before leav- 
ing his home to go to Washington for the above men- 
tioned purpose. The writer however will not try to 
reconcile these two answers. 

In reply to a statement of Mr. Spalding that Dr. 
Whitman reached Washington March 3 before the ad- 
journment of Congress, Prof. Bourne saj^s that the 
Doctor was at Westport, Mo., February 15, three 
hundred miles west of St. Louis and that it was "al- 
most if not quite impossible for him to have reached 
Washington in fifteen days'' (86). When answering 
the question why the Doctor went to Washington be- 
fore he went to Boston, he says that "his plan for pro- 
tecting and aiding emigration might be seriously 
diminished by a few days delay after the adjourn- 
ment of congress" (89). 

Prof. Bourne condemns Barrows because in his 
book he rejects the fable of Sir George Simpson being 
in Washington "with engaging candor, only to insert 
it five times within fifty pages," "cf. pp. 233, with pp. 
153, 158, 202, 203, 204" (40). Now Barrows says 
"If Sir George Simpson ever visited Washington, the 
evidence is yet wanting except in rumors" (233), 
But on p. 153 he writes that Gov. Simpson "is said 
about that time to have enjoyed protracted social re- 
lations at Washington with D. Webster;" and on page 
158 he quotes what Mr. Spalding said about Gov. 
Simpson's Avork at AYashington ; and on pages 202-4 
in one discussion he tells what was reported about Gov, 



18 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

Simpson, and his work in Washington. The fact is 
he does not reject it and then insert it five times.^ 
but simply says that the evidence about Gov. Simpson 
being there is wanting except in rumors, and then 
inserts the rumors three times on five diiferent pages 
between pages 153 and 204. Now the question may be 
properly asked: Is that fair treatment of an oppo- 
nent who is dead and cannot answer for himself, by 
a candid historian? 

Prof. Marshall likewise makes similarly strange 
statements. He says that S. A. Clarke wrote an ac- 
count of Dr. Whitman's trip east and the national 
reasons for it in 1864 in which he says that it was "an 
incident of our early history never to my knoivledge 
before given to the public" (232). Afterwards Prof. 
Marshall says the above mentioned correspondence 
"explicitly declared that it had never before been 
given to the public" (234), omitting the words "to 
my knowledge." Whether it had previously been thus 
given depends somewhat on what is understood by 
the words "given to the public." If they mean, "first 
printed" it is the first time as far a& we yet know. 
If in a public address they could be thus given, then 
according to Mrs. G. F. Colbert, of Crawfordsville. 
Oregon, she heard it in a sermon by Mr. Spalding 
about 1852.* Prof. Marshall delivered an address 
on this Whitman subject seventeen years ago last 
November in Baltimore. If that was making his 
views public, then he is mistaken when he says what 

♦Oregonian, May 21, 1885. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 19 

he has, as just quoted, while Mr. Clarke was correct. 
Certainly it was a serious mistake to make Mr. 
Clarke say what he did not say. 

Again, January 13, 1902, Prof. Marshall wrote 
the author in regard to Mr. Spalding's diary which 
he has. The Professor says : 



"You have professed for a number of years to be anxious 
to have the truth appear in this matter. If sincere in that pro- 
fession, why do you not publish the diary of Rev. H. H. Spauld- 
ing, which I understand is in your possession, or turn it over, 
unmutilated, to the Oregon Historical Society, where historical 
students can get access to it. That diary must contain a good 
deal of matter that would be very important in a discussion 
of the Whitman question, and, so far as I have been able to 
learn, except 61 words printed by you on page 18 of your 
pamphlet, "Marcus Whitman, M. D.", you have not published 
a solitary word from that diary, which is the most convincing 
proof that there is nothing in it that supports the Saving Ore- 
gon theorj' of Whitman's ride. It is precisely this policy of 
concealment of evidence which has caused me to make my 
criticism of the leading advocates of the myth very severe. I 
do not think that it is at all necessary now for the establish- 
ment of the truth in this matter that you should make Spald- 
ing's diary accessible, but I do think it is indispiensable to your 
reputation for candor and good faith that you should do this, 
and you should have done it as soon as it came into your pos- 
session." 



As previously the writer has been asked in re- 
gard to evidence from this diary, he will say that the 
diary does not include the time under discussion, and 
that the writer did a few years ago, copy by hand and 
turn over to Prof. F. G. Young, Secretary of the Ore- 
gon Historical Society, all that was of public interest. 
The journal covers 87 pages, ten and a half inches by 



20 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

fourteen and a half, and is in a blank book. It is 
quite full from November 1838, to April 22, 1842. 
Then there are ten and a half blank pages, as if he 
was too busy then to write in it, but intended to do so 
when he should have more time; then there is a page 
and a half from February 21 to March 7, 1843, and that 
is the end. It is doubtful whether he kept any more 
diary anywhere, at least while he was in the mission, 
as there is then a blank page and a half, after which 
are sixteen pages of lists of subscribers to the Amer- 
ican Messenger, Child's Paper, and others, after 1852, 
when he was in the Willamette valley. That is all 
there is in the book. The readers can judge from this 
on what little evidence and knowledge the Professor 
bases some of his statements. 

Again he writes (23,) that so many people had 
written about this subject toitJwut knowing anyiliing 
about the facts, as Messrs. Barrows, Nixon, Craig- 
head, M. Eells, Laurie, ^Nlowry and Edwards had done, 
that he thought one man ought to have the patience to 
wait until he had thoroughly mastered it before rush- 
ing into print about it, but that he is now ready to 
publish the final word about it. In 1888 (222) 
twelve years before the time just spoken of as "now" 
he knew that if its falsity were not exposed it would 
soon be in the school histories and tried to prevent 
it by offering to read a paper about it before the His- 
torical Association, but failed; afterwards he found 
it going into these histories (229) which was most 
certainly through the arguments of these persons 
who knew nothing about the facts; and so he con- 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 21 

eluded that the best thing he could do was to drive 
the story from the school books, not by a public dis- 
cussion, where scholars could read both sides, but 
by writing privately to the authors of these books. 
He also says (222) that he was for fifteen years pre- 
vious to December, 1900, the only one — "the solitary 
A'oice" — east of the Rocky mountains who cried out 
against this historical fabrication. 

Now what do these statements and this evidence 
show? Is not the following the natural answer? 
That Mr. Marshall knew of the public discussion 
on the Pacific coast; that he knew that his side had 
been worsted b}' those who knew "not anything about 
the facts" so that he was the only one to defend his 
side east of the Rockies, while those who believed 
the evidence presented by those who knew noth- 
ing, absolutely nothing, were a great number; hence 
he was afraid to meet his opponents who knew noth- 
inc: in argument, and concluded about two vears be- 
fore Prof. Bourne read his paper to write to the au- 
thors of histories so quietly that his opponents would 
not know it, and so could not answer him. How much 
he wrote, the writer does not know, but to Dr. Mow- 
ry he wrote a letter of 182 pages before 
the latter published his book, but failed to convince 
him, for he had studied both sides of the subject.* In 
this letter he practically characterized the defenders 
of Dr. Whitman, as Messrs. Atkinson, Barrows, Gray, 
Spalding, C. Eells and M. Eells, as liars. Thus secret- 
ly he took opportunity to speak to authors in such a 

•Letter of Dr. W. A. Mowry to the author. 



22 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

way that the above named persons could defend neith- 
er themselves nor their side of the question. AVas it 
not a blow in the dark? 

(3) El wood Evans, too, properly falls under this 
criticism. In 1883 Dr. C. Eells had stated in regard 
to the meeting of the mission held in September 1842, 
that a record of it was made, but that 



"the book containing the same was in the keeping of the Whit- 
man family. At the time of their massacre, November 29, 1847, 
it disappeared." 



The house of Dr. Eells at the Whitman mission 
was burned in 1872, a fact which Mr. Evans knew. 
He had also been furnished with a pamphlet con- 
taining tlie above statement of Dr. Eells. Yet in 1884 
he wrote ; 

"In 1866 Rev. Gushing Eells had in his possession the minutes 
of all the missionary meetings. The assertion that those records 
were destroyed by fire in 1872, will not be accepted as a satis- 
factory excuse that between 1865 and 1872 those minutes were 
not appealed to, to settle the question of what transpired at the 

m.i&sion meeting of 1842."* 

Gov. P. H. Burnett published in 1880 that 

"On the 18th of May [1843] the emigrants met at the rendez- 
vous, held a meeting and appointed a committee to see Dr. 
Whitman" 

and he adds that on the 20th at a meeting at the Big 

•Oregonian, Dec. 26, 1884. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 23 

Springs be met the Doctor. This he took from a con- 
cise journal he kept.* I\Ir. Evans wrote 

"Dr. Whitman's connection with that immigration commenced 
with the crossing of the North Platte in June."* 

]\Ir. Evans "wrote that cotemporary history 
establishes the fact that Rev. Jason Lee was in Wash- 
ington during the winter of 1843-4. Cotemporary his- 
tory established the fact that he did not leave the 
Sandwich Islands for the east until February 28, 
1844, and sailed in a small schooner to Mexico, which 
he crossed.* Later history states that he reached 
New York May 27, and afterwards went to Washing- 
ton, being there the last half of June.* 

Mr. Evans wrote that Daniel Webster said in his 
speech March 30, 1846. 

"The government of the United States never offered any line 
south of 49 degrees (with the navigation of the Columbia) and it 
never will. It behooves all concerned to regard this as a settled 
point. I said as plainly as I could speak or put down words in 
writing, that England must not expect anything south of forty- 
nine degrees. I said so in so many words."* 

The first two sentences are in that speech. Af- 
terwards when questioned, he added in regard to 
what he had just told the Senate, not England, in 
1842, 

♦Recollections of an Old Pioneer, p. 101. 
♦Oregonian, Dec. 26, 1884. 
*Hines, Oregon, chap. 10. 

*Hines, Missionary History of the Pacific Northwest, p. 
305-6. 

♦Oregonian, March 20, 1885. 



24 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

"the senator and the senate will do me the justice to admit 
that I said as plainly as I could and in as short sentence as I 
could frame that England must not expect anything south of 
the forty-ninth degree,"* 



except that there might be friendly negotiation 
about the navigation of the Columbia, and about cer- 
tain straits, sounds and islands in the neighboring 
seas. Mr. Evans's quotation is a strange mixture, 
and the words ''put down words in writing" were 
not then used by "Webster. 

(4) Mrs. F. F. Victor is also another person 
whose literary accuracy Prof. Bourne honors. She. 
wrote that the object of Gov. Simpson's journey 
around the world in 1841-2 w^as "the studj' of the fur 
trade and not politics." Gov. Simpson did study the 
fur trade, but he also devoted a part of chapter six 
to the political situation of Oregon, declared that 
England needed no more arguments to support her 
claims than she had, and challenged the Americans 
to impose "the Atlantic tariff on the ports of the 
Pacific."* 

Mrs. Victor wrote that "the first suggestion of a 
safe and easy road to the Columbia river" through 
the Blue mountains, "came from a member of the 
Hudson's Bay Company" and referred to T. J. Farn- 
ham's book as proof.* But Farnham, although 
speaking of such a road wrote as he did after his visit 
to Dr. Whitman's in 1839, and does not refer to the 

*Webster's Works, Vol. 5, pp. 73, 76, 77. 
♦Simpson's Journey round the world, pp. 149-153. 
♦Oregonian, Nov. 7, 1884. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 25 

Hudson's Bay Company anywhere as his authority 
on the subject. Mr. Farnham was an "Ardent Am- 
erican." 

Dr. Gushing Eells had said that Dr. Whitman 
had a "cherished object'' in going east, referring to 
the saving of the mission, but he did not remember 
that it was mentioned at the meeting of the mission 
in September, 1842.* Mrs. Victor claimed that Dr. 
Whitman had a "secret motiye" known to Dr. Eells, 
but not mentioned, and thinks that it was to obtain 
an office for himself, i. e.. Dr. Whitman, in Oregon.* 

She again wrote, "Admitting that he (Dr. W^hit- 
man) feared the treaty of boundary would draw the 
line at the Columbia river, leaving him in British 
territory, could he hope to reach Washington before 
it was concluded."* But such a line would not have 
left Dr. Whitman's station in British territory as any 
map of the state of Washington will show, and Mrs. 
Victor had visited the Whitman mission station be- 
fore she wrote this. 

Referring to the Doctor's visit to Boston, she 
speaks of his cold reception by the Board but adds 
that they "did finally consent to permit the Doctor 
to continue the mission work there begun, should 
he wish to do so, without further help from them."* 
Not only is there nowhere any evidence of this state- 
ment but the Board sustained him and his mission to 
the day of his death. 

♦Eells' Whitman pamphlet, p. 10. 
*Oregonian, Nov. 7, 1884. 
♦Oregonian, Nov. 7, 1884. 
♦Bancroft, Oregon, p. 243. 



26 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE, 

Bancroft's history is spoken of by Prof, Bourne as 
a "great achievement/' (41) and while he does not 
think it perfect, yet he praises it highly as well as 
Mrs, Victor, the avowed author of Bancroft's Ore- 
gon. "The Proceeding of the Society of California 
Pioneers in reference to the Histories of Hubert 
Howe Bancroft," a pamphlet of thirty-seven pages 
published in Feburary, 1894, is an answer to this. 
Mr. Bancroft was an honorary member of the So- 
ciety. In October, 1893, charges were made against 
his histories, especially those of his own state, Cali- 
fornia, but references are made to other works of 
his, including the history of Oregon. Some of his 
statements were charged with being "at variance with 
historical records," "unworthy the labors of an up- 
right historian," and as the statements of one "who 
had strayed far from the domain of an honest writer." 
His name was by vote accordingly stricken from the 
roll. At the next meeting of the Society this was re- 
considered in order to give Mr. Bancroft an oppor- 
tunity to defend himself and a committee was ap- 
pointed to take the matter in charge. Seven counts 
were prej^ared against him, to sustain which his 
books were the witnesses. In these counts he was 
charged with having distorted the facts and truths 
of history," "maligned the memory of many of the 
men" conspicuous in early events, called those liars 
who disagreed with him as the briefest way of dis- 
posing of their narratives, especially those who were 
dead and could make no answer, and of having a 
spirit of prejudice and seemingly malignant dislikes 
and hatreds of the men about whom he had written. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 27 

A single illustration is here given from what 
was prepared for the history of Oregon, and printed, 
but finally stricken out and a new page printed in its 
place because of the earnest intercession of some who 
had become acquainted with the fact. It is in re- 
gard to President Grant, at one time an officer of the 
army in Oregon and an honorary member of the Cali- 
fornia Society. "Among these soldiers was U. S. 
Grant, a man of mediocre abilities, and somewhat 
loose habits, subsequently elevated by accident to the 
head of the army, and twice to the presidency of the 
United Statesi. Not satisfied to rest with the world's 
highest honors, he turned and took a downward 
course; asked again to be president, was refused; 
begged from poor Mexico important concessions and 
was refused ; and finally engaged in a business which 
was disreputably managed and resulted in ignomin- 
ious failure. So the end of the man was as bad as 
the beginning." 

Judge O. C. Pratt, who tried the murderers of Dr. 
Whitman, also received a severe blow in the History 
of Oregon. 

Mr. Bancroft was requested to appear be- 
fore a committee of the Society and answer the 
charges. He failed to appear, and another time was 
set when he also failed to appear. A third time was 
set, which he likewise ignored, whereupon, Febru- 
ary 5, 1894, when eighty members of the Society were 
present, his name was unanimously stricken from the 
roll of honorary membership of the Society. 

Is it now proper to ask the question whether 
persons who make such statements with such styles 



28 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

of argumentation and using such expressions are 
candid, honest, fair, careful, scientific historians? 
This subject is a matter of history and the writer 
<?annot see why anyone on either side should try to 
decide it by calling names, dealing in probabilities, 
or misstating an opponent's position. The question is 
simply to be decided by weight of argument. There 
are two sides to the question. People may differ hon- 
estly in regard to the relative weight of the argu- 
ments and facts, just as good Christian people differ 
in regard to the teaching of the Bible on questions of 
doctrine or church government, but the writer's opin- 
ion is that discussion should be conducted in a calm, 
rational manner. The writer has wondered if the 
above are indications of the way in which history is 
taught at Yale college.* 



II. Points in regard to ichich the loriter agrees 
■with Prof. Bom-ne. 

(a) That the mind of Rev. H. H. Spalding was 
affected by the Whitman massacre so that his state- 
ments are not always reliable. 

Away from home at the time of the massacre and 
riding directly towards Dr. Whitman's mission im- 
mediately after his death, Mr. Spalding learned of 
the massacre when within three miles of the station. 
Consequently he turned and fled and by a round- 
about journey reached his home, after a week's travel, 

♦See above, p. 3, foot note. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 2^ 

having been on foot most of the time traveling by 
night, with almost no food except the roots and ber- 
ries he could gather, with feet bleeding for want of 
shoes, followed a part of the way by an Indian who 
wanted to kill him, knowing that his daughter was 
among the captives or killed and that the murderers 
had threatened to go to his station and kill his family. 
He thus underwent physical and mental sufferings 
which would have killed many men, and if his mind 
on some points had been affected ever afterwards, it 
would not have been strange. Yet notwithstanding 
the expressions which Prof. Bourne quotes about him 
as having been "a poor broken down wreck," "not 
over and above sane on any subject," and the like, 
he lived twenty-four years after this and did more 
good, especially to the Nez Perce Indians than a 
great share of mankind do anywhere in a lifetime. 
Still we agree with the Professor that Mr. Spald- 
ing's statements are not always reliable ivhen not ac- 
companied icith other evidence. 

(b) Again the writer agrees with the Professor 
that a certain event at old Fort Walla Walla, Octo- 
ber 2, 1842, was not the prime cause of Dr. Whit- 
man's going east, when before a large number of trad- 
ers and chief factors it was said that the Canadian 
express had arrived, bringing the news that the Red 
river emigration from Manitoba was over the moun- 
tains, and so Oregon was safe to England. For the 
Oregon mission had by vote on September 28 author- 
ized the Doctor to go east four days before this inci- 
dent is said to have happened. 



30 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

(c) The writer also ag^rees that those state- 
ments could not have been made as quoted, for the 
Red River emigration came in 1841, and the Canadian 
express did not reach Fort Walla Walla in 1842 un- 
til October 22. 

(d) Again the writer agrees that Dr. Whitman 
did not originate the whole emigration of 1843, for 
the testimony of some of the emigrants says that 
they did not start because of any representations of 
the Doctor. 

(e) The writer lastly agrees that two reasons 
why the Doctor went east were to secure the rescind- 
ing of the order of the Board to discontinue his sta- 
tion and that of Mr. Spalding, and also to obtain a 
number of Christian families to settle near the mis- 
sion stations so as to set the Indians a good example 
and to take much of the secular work from the mis- 
sionaries. The Professor need not have searched the 
records of the Board to have established these facts, 
as they were published in the Missionary Herald in 
September, 1843, have never been denied by the 
writer and have not been the subject of real contro- 
versy for over fifteen years on the Pacific coast. In 
fact all of these points were published by the writer 
in 1883 and have not been the subject of much con- 
troversy for many years. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 31 

III. But while the writer willingly agrees with 
Professor Bourne on these points, he decidedly dis- 
agrees with him on others, namely: 

(a) That because Mr. Spalding and one or two 
others have made mistakes in their statements, the 
whole story is a legend, no weight being given to any 
other statements. To illustrate, a murder was com- 
mitted at Port Townsend in this state several years 
ago among a crowd of people. In court some of the 
witnesses on oath testified that it was done before 
a certain event took place which all saw, and some 
testified that it was done after this event. Some wit- 
nesses were mistaken, yet this did not prove that 
there was no murder. So now while there are some 
mistakes in the evidence, they neither prove that Dr. 
AYhitman did not go east with intent to help the coun- 
try politically, nor that he accomplished nothing 
while there. 

Another illustration of this principle occurs in 
this discussion. In 1883 the writer published in a 
pamphlet some remarks on the subject made in the 
Oregon legislature, taken from the Danville Adver- 
tiser of New York, whicli lie said copied them from 
the Sacramento Bulletin. The writer was mistaken 
in saying they were copied from the Sacramento Bul- 
letin, for they were copied from the Sacramento Un- 
ion. Both Prof. Bourne and Prof. Marshall have re- 
ferred to this mistake, the only mistake they have 
found by the writer in this controversy. The writer's 
excuse is that in the manuscript copy which he has of 
that article it is said to have been taken from the Bui- 



32 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

letin. It was a mistake of the copyist. But this mis- 
take does not prove that the article was not published 
in Danville or Sacramento. Prof. Marshall even 
says that because of this mistake he "supposed this 
to be merely another of the numerous fabrications of 
alleged authorities and so did not try to trace it up'^ 
until after the meeting of the American Historical 
Association in December, 1900, although he had 
known what the author wrote since 1885. He found 
however that the position here taken by the writer is 
true, that there might be some mistake in regard to a 
statement and yet that in the main the statement 
might be correct. In fact, if this were not so the Pro- 
fessor would have to yield his whole argument in re- 
gard to the Whitman story, for he says that "we know 
not only the author but the very date and place of its 
first appearance," "full grown," the author having 
been Mr. Spalding and the date and place the San 
Francisco Pacific of October 19, and November 0, 
1865 (227) ; but (232) he acknowledges that it ap- 
peared in the Sacramento Union KoATmber 16, 1864, 
and was known by S. A. Clarke and in the Oregon 
legislature a little before that. 

Here is where Professor Bourne and some other 
persons have made a serious mistake. They have set 
up all of Mr. Spalding's statements, (having conclud- 
ed to reject all others that were contaminated by con- 
tact with him) have battered down some of these 
statements, and then have concluded that the^^ have 
swept away the whole story, either not knowing or 
forgetting that other statements are supported by a 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 33 

large amount of other evidence and also that the 
writer published these mistakes as mistakes in 1883. 

(b) The writer does not agree with Professor 
Bourne that the two reasons given above were the 
main reasons for the Doctor's going east, largely be- 
cause so little was written at the time about his po- 
litical reasons while so much was written about the 
two missionary reasons. 

To illustrate again from the writer's experience. 
In February, 1881 the writer went about a hundred 
miles to perform a marriage ceremony between two 
white persons. While thus absent he joreached both 
to whites and Indians, attended two funerals, assist- 
ed in holding an Indian court, did some trading for 
himself, more for others, did some work on the United 
States census, selected a cemetery, recorded a town 
plat, saw to the signing of nineteen deeds which re- 
quired 138 signatures, obtained two marriage licenses 
for Indians and married the two couples, did pas- 
toral work and talked about these things very much 
more than he did about that wedding of white peo- 
ple, (in fact said as little as possible about that ex- 
cept to a few trusted friends). And yet the fact 
remains that he would not have made the trip at that 
time had it not been for that wedding, though he 
would have gone two or three months later. So Dr. 
Whitman could have gone east for several objects. 
Because he and others talked and wrote more about 
mission work is no proof that this was the main reason 
he went, though others as well as Professor Bourne 
have written much to prove that it was and some have 



34 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

asserted that it was the only object he had in view. 

Although Professor Bourne makes much of this 
want of evidence at the missionary rooms at Boston, 
in Mrs. Whitman's letters, and in other writings that 
Dr. Whitman went east for national reasons, as a 
strong proof that he had no such reasons, it reminds 
the writer of the story of the five witnesses in court 
who testified that they saw the prisoner murder his 
fellow being, but because ten men appeared who stat- 
ed that they did not see the murder committed the 
prisoner was cleared. A curious illustration of Pro- 
fessor Bourne's reasoning is his reference to Mr. 
Spalding's interview with Joel Palmer, September 
17, 1845, and a letter of Mr. Spalding's to General 
Palmer April 7, 1846 (18). As Mr. Spalding men- 
tioned nothing to General Palmer then about Dr. 
Whitman saving Oregon, Professor Bourne's conclu- 
sion is that he knew nothing about Dr. Whitman go- 
ing east for national purposes. The fact was that 
Oregon was not fully saved, as the Oregon treaty was 
not made until June, 1846. 

Another illustration of Professor Bourne's rea- 
soning is the statement that because "such represen- 
tative newspapers as Niles' Register and the N. Y. 
Tribune" did not hint that Lord Ashburton was likely 
to take up the Oregon question, therefore he did not 
discuss it. This will be considered a little later* 

In fact the author does not think that Professor 
Bourne really believes in this principle, for if he does 
he has made a statement damaging to himself. He 

*See pp. 44-5. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 35 

says that Dr. Whitman's business in Washin^on 
was to urge the government to make emigration to 
Oregon easier and safer. Yet he does not find a par- 
ticle of evidence in the missionary rooms at Boston 
that the Doctor was in Washington or was urging 
such measures. Neither can he find it from Mr. 
Spalding's interview with General Palmer or the let- 
ters of Dr. C. Eells or Dr. Atkinson or Mr. Walker 
or Mr. Spalding before 1864, or from any of Mrs. 
Whitman's letters. He can find from her letters that 
before the Doctor started east he intended to go to 
Washington but she nowhere states in those letters 
which have been found, as far as the writer knows, 
that he went there or urged government to take such 
measures. Yet notwithstanding the lack of such evi- 
dence in these places where it might be supposed that 
it ought to be. Professor Bourne states .that Dr. Whit- 
man did go to Washington for that purpose. This is 
the author's answer to the charges made that his side 
has not quoted "perfectly accessible sources" which 
Professor Bourne says "demonstrate its falsity" (6) 
but which the author claims do not because they sim- 
ply say nothing on the subject. If Professor Bourne 
can find a plain statement at Boston or in Mrs. Whit- 
man's letters or by any good authority previous to 
1864 that Dr. Whitman did not go east for national 
reasons, let him make it known, but if not, the absence 
of evidence in certain places is not conclusive proof 
that Dr. Whitman did not go east for those reasons. 

(c) Professor Bourne holds that the recollec- 
tions of persons who were acquainted with Dr. Whit- 



36 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

man are of little or no value, when stated many years 
afterwards, if they are unsupported by written cotem- 
porary evidence, for it is not scientific history. He 
rejects the evidence of many witnesses because they 
published nothing until 1864, and so the evidence de- 
pends on the memories of persons twenty-one years 
or more after the events took place. He refers (p. 71) 
to two books, "Introduction to the Study of History," 
and "Pierce's Recollections as a Source of History," 
to sustain him in his position. This address, deliver- 
ed in June, 1901, was offered to the American His- 
torical Review for publication, but was declined in a 
very gentlemanly letter by the editor in chief because 
"it rests largely on the remembrance of the old." He 
also added, "Scientific historical students know from 
innumerable tested cases that extremely little confi- 
dence can be reposed in recollections set down long 
after the events, even when several of them closely 
agreeJ' 

If the editor had lived as long on the Pacific 
coast as he has on the Atlantic he would have learn- 
ed that one great object of the State Historical So- 
cieties is to write down the historical statements of 
many individuals before they shall die and their 
knowledge be lost forever. There have been many 
men on the Pacific coast who never had much educa- 
tion and who find it a great task to write a little, who 
have made and witnessed the making of a large 
amount of history, not knowing its importance at the 
time, and even others did not realize it until later 
events showed the importance of these facts. These 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 37 

societies are glad to record their evidence from thirty 
to sixty years after the events transpired. The writer 
has been asked to write a history of a part of the 
county in which he lives, and finds that until within 
twelve years there are almost no written records 
about it although it was settled forty-five years ago. 
The rest must be gathered from the recollections of 
early settlers. In fact can Professor Bourne tell 
what cotemporary writer recorded the history of 
Christ, all the gospels having been written many years 
after Christ's death? What cotemporary evidence 
is there for much of early Greek or Roman or Eng- 
lish history which the Professor teaches, or much 
about the early life of Daniel Boone and the founders 
of Kentucky or other states? The writer has no ob- 
jection to scientific history as above defined, namely 
the facts written at or near the time they occurred. 
He has tried to obtain all such scientific history that 
he could for all of his writings. He has searched old 
books, pamphlets and letters for it. He thinks highly 
of it, and more highly of only one thing and that is 
the truth. This he places above everything. Gen- 
erally scientific history and truth agree, but some- 
times in order to obtain the truth it is necessary to 
go outside of scientific history, and sometimes scien- 
tific history is not the truth. But to get as near the 
truth as possible is what the writer believes in thor- 
oughly. If it cannot be done in this scientific way 
he does not believe in abandoning the attempt if it 
can be obtained in any other way. There is a true 
science and there has always been a "science falsely 
so called" since the time when Paul wrote about it 



38 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

to Timothy. For instance Dr. Gushing Eells passed 
through two fires, one in 1840, and the other in 1872 ; 
also in 1848 he had to leave the Spokane country on 
account of the Whitman massacre and had to pack 
all he took with him on the backs of horses and mules. 
Some papers were burned in the first fire, others were 
lost by moving, and nearly all others by the second 
fire. Many persons after hearing him personally re- 
late many of his pioneer experiences, were anxious to 
have them preserved. So he prepared a series of ad- 
dresses on the subject, delivered them, and they were 
gladly published in the Walla Walla Watchman in 
1885. Before his death his son Edwin wished to 
have more preserved and employed a stenographer to 
whom Dr. Eells related much and thus they were pre- 
served. Although he refreshed his memory all he 
could from the writings of others, yet he had to rely 
on his memory for much. It was either this or to lose 
much of truth. In writing his biography the writer 
used the above material largely and still believes he 
did right. The truth of these statements has not 
been questioned by those who knew Dr. Eells. 

The writer has in his library "Personal Recollec- 
tions of General Nelson A. Miles," a book of 591 pages. 
Although undoubtedly General Miles used many 
notes of his own and of others, yet there is no doubt 
but that he drew on his memory for some of the 
book, and the writer does not believe it right to throw 
the book overboard because it is partl^y the personal 
recollection of the General. 

Another book the writer prizes highly is "Pio- 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 39 

neer days on Puget Sound," by Hon, A. A. Denney, 
one of the founders of Seattle, Avlio went there in 
1851. He lived in a log cabin for a time, where he 
did not have much opportunity to preserve early his- 
tory, or indeed much idea of what its value would 
afterwards be. After he had been elected delegate to 
congress, had become one of Seattle's prominent bank- 
ers and substantial men of unquestioned integrity, 
and Seattle had grown to be the largest city in Wash- 
ington, it was natural that his friends should wish 
to have him leave to them some of his knowledge. He 
did so in 1887, drawing on his memory for some of it. 
The truthfulness of the narrative has never been 
questioned to the writer's knowledge, and it will be a 
very sad day for the Northwest when all such recol- 
lections by its noble pioneers shall be rejected be- 
cause they were recollections, and so not scientific. 

In 1885-1886 the Oregonian published a long ser- 
ies of articles entitled ^'Pioneer Days," written by 
Hon. S. A. Clarke, who traversed Oregon and inter- 
viewed the old pioneers in order to obtain what was 
very diflBcult or impossible for them to write, and 
what would otherwise have been lost. Yet they de- 
pended largely on their memories for what they re- 
lated. These articles the Oregonian paid for because 
it believed them to be very valuable. 

If any scientific historian should have been mar- 
ried many years ago and then have passed through 
such a fire as that of Chicago in 1871, and should 
have lost the marriage certificate and likewise had 
the recorded one burned, the writer would not doubt 



40 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

his marriage if the historian should state it from 
his personal memory, especially if it were confirmed 
by the statements of witnesses who were present at 
the marriage, even if that marriage had taken place 
forty years previous. 

If a half dozen scientific historians had attended 
the same common school in early life taught by a 
certain teacher forty years ago, but if the school 
house should have been destroyed and the records all 
lost as has been the case with two schools which the 
writer attended more than forty years ago, and if 
they should meet this year and tell the name of the 
teacher and where the school house stood, the writer 
would accept it as historic truth even if Prof. 
Bourne should reject it because not scientific. 

To illustrate from the present controversy. Pre- 
vious to 1885 several of the friends of Dr. Whitman 
said that he told them that he went to Washington in 
1843, and Governor Alexander Ivamsey of Minnesota 
said he saw him there. Hon Elwood Evans disputed 
this and argued with all his powers of a lawyer 
against it, cross questioning Governor Eamsey on 
the subject. It was not scientific history, for the evi- 
dence was from memory. In 1891 a letter was found 
in Washington written by Dr. Whitman in which he 
said that he had been in Washington. This was 
scientific, but it was the truth just as much before 
that letter was found as after, and no more the truth 
afterward because of the finding of the letter. 

Again Dr. C. Eells said from memory, thirty or 
forty years afterwards, that a meeting was held at 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 41 

Dr. Whitman's b^^ the Oregon mission which author- 
ized Dr. AVhitman to go east. Taking October 3d, 
Monday, as the day on Avhich the Doctor started, Dr. 
Eells counted baciv what he did every day for the pre- 
vious ten days and said that the meeting was begun 
September 26, 1842. This was not scientific but it 
was the truth. This was again controverted by Gov. 
Evans, who said there was no meeting of the Oregon 
mission held between the annual one in June and 
the time the Doctor started. In the Missionary Her- 
ald for September, 1843, it was stated by the editor 
that such a meeting was held, but he said that it was 
"last October." This was scientific but it was not the 
truth. Afterwards the journal of Rev. E. Walker 
was found of that time, and it stated exactly what 
Dr. Eells had said. This was scientific and it was 
the truth, but it was the truth just as surely before 
that journal was found. This discovery brought 
from Governor Evans a very humble letter of apology 
to S. T. Walker who had found his father's journal, 
and he also apologized to Dr. Eells in about the fol-, 
lowing words: ''I did not impeach your integrity 
but I did your memory.-' 

Again, as has been stated, several witnesses said 
from memory that Dr. Whitman told them that he 
went east in 1842-3 with other than missionary mo- 
tives. This was not scientific but it was the truth, 
although for years it has been controverted, for a let- 
ter of his has been found in Boston which says, "It 
was to open a practical route and safe passage, and 
secure a favorable report of the journey from the 



42 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

emigrants which in connection with other objects 
caused me to leave my family and brave the toils and 
dangers of the journey." Another letter has been 
found at Washington which states what he tried to 
do there before he went to Boston. This was just as 
much the truth before these letters were found as 
after. 

On the other hand, in July, 1901, a pamphlet was 
published about Mason county, Washington, (the 
county in which the writer lives), for distribution at 
the Pan-American exposition at Buffalo, and which 
hence would be believed to be authentic. In this a 
statement is made about Martin Koopman (who lives 
in Hoodsport, six or eight miles from the writer's 
residence, and where the writer has preached con- 
stantly since 1888,) who, the pamphlet says "conducts 
a restaurant there." Now this is scientific because 
its author went there before he wrote it, took four 
pictures of the place for his pamphlet and was sup- 
posed to know. But the truth is that Mr. Koopman 
does not and never has kept a restaurant there but a 
saloon. Still if thirty years from now the history 
of Hoodsport shall be written and this shall be found, 
it will be accepted by scientific historians, even if ten 
residents of the place say from memory it is not so. 

Again this pamphlet says of the same place that 
"the first white settler was Vincent Finch who came 
here in the early 60's," and "for many years this was 
the head of navigation and the only port on Hood 
canal." The truth is that Mr. Finch was not the first 
settler there, was not living there in the early 60's> 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 43 

and the place was never the head of navigation or 
the only port on Hood canal, for Union City, four 
miles further up the canal, was a port about twenty 
years before Hoodsport dreamed of having a name. 
Now when such statements are made the onlj way to 
show them to be mistakes is to depend on the mem- 
ories of those who have lived in the region for many 
years. But according to the scientific historians this 
is not to be accepted. 

Still, as stated at first, the writer is willing to 
accept scientific history where it is truth ; he will re- 
ject it when he knows that it is not ; and he believes 
in trying to find the truth of history wherever it can 
be found. He half believes that the public will agree 
with him. 

The reasoning of the editor of the Historical Re- 
view in regard to the little confidence to be placed 
on recollections set down long after the events, even 
when several of them closely agree, seems to be this : 
"some persons' memories have not been reliable, 
therefore none are; many coins are counterfeit, 
therefore all are; much beef was embalmed, there- 
fore all was." Those on the Pacific coast who were 
acquainted with the witnesses mentioned in the 
Eells' Whitman pamphlet have never dared to reject 
all their testimony, though some who never knew 
them and have lived three or four thousand miles 
from them may do so. 

But it seems as if Prof. Bourne did not believe 
the position he has thus taken, for he gives in support 
of his side three pages (106-109) containing inter- 



44 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

views with Mrs. A. L. Lovejoy and D. P. Thompson, 
taken in 1899 or 1900, in which they tell what they 
remembered that Mr. Lovejoy told them about the af- 
fair under consideration. Mr. Thompson's interview 
was of what Mr. Lovejoy told him between early in 
the fifties and 1861, concerning what occurred in 
1842-3 : — a memory after from thirty-six to fifty 
jears of another memory of from seven to twenty- 
one years, a total of fifty-seven years after the event. 
Yet if C. Eells or a number of other persons on the 
other side state what they remember from twenty- 
three to forty years after, it is said to be worthless. 
Can any other conclusion be reached than that Pro- 
fessor Bourne has decided that memory, even if it 
be a memory of a memory, fifty-seven years old, is of 
weight if on his side, but if it is on the other side and 
a single memory, not half as old, it is of no weight? 
Does this not break down his whole argument? The 
reader must decide whether it does not place him 
where he places Dr. Mowry, "an advocate and not a 
historian" (50). 

(d) The writer does not agree that Daniel Web- 
ster and Lord Ashburton did not take up the Oregon 
question. Prof. Bourne says : 

"Nor do such representative papers as Niles' Register and 
the N. Y. Tribune, in discussing Lord Ashburton's Mission, in- 
timate that the Oregon boundary was lil^ely to be taken up. 
See the issues of January 29, 1842. Lord Ashburton arrived 
April 3 and the next notice in Niles' Register is August 6. The 
Oregon emigration of 1842 left Independence, Mo., May 16." (68) 

He inserts this to show that that emigration 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 45 

could not have brought word to Dr. Whitman that 
there was danger of Oregon being traded off. It has 
already been referred to as a proof that absence of 
evidence in one place cannot be dei3ended on to prove 
that a fact did not occur.* Elwood Evans took the 
same position, even asserting that 



"the instructions of Lord Ashburton did not permit him to go to 
the Pacific. He had neither official power nor personal discre- 
tion on the Oregon question."* 



In December, 1S41, Lord Aberdeen, British Sec- 
retary of State for Foreign Affairs, informed Ed- 
ward Everett, U. S. Minister at London, that his 



"government had determined to send Lord Ashburton as a spe- 
cial minister to the United States with full powers to settle 
the boundary question and all other questions in controversy 
between the two governments." 



Lord Ashburton arrived in Washington, April 
4, 1842. On April 11, 1842, Mr. Webster wrote Gov. 
Fairfield of Maine of Lord Ashburton's arrival, and 
that he was charged with full x>owers "to negotiate 
and settle different matters in discussion between the 
two governments.'"* As the emigrants left Independ- 
ence May 16, forty-two days after Ashburton's ar- 
rival they could easily have learned of it, for Dr. 
Whitman went from Westport, Mo., to Washington 

*See above, p. 34. 

*Oregonian, March 20, 1S85. 

♦Webster's Works, Vol. 6, pp. 270, 272, 273. 



46 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

between Feb. 15 and March 28 via Ithaca, N. Y., in 
forty-one days, when Prof. Bourne says the Missouri 
river was frozen over. Moreover Lord Ashburton 
and Mr. Webster did discuss the Oregon boundary 
question, but found that there was so little proba- 
bility of their coming to an agreement that it was 
omitted in the treaty for fear it would endanger other 
matters which were considered to be of more import- 
ance, and this was spoken of in the President's mes- 
sage the next December. 

"Lord Ashburton had come over with specific and detailed in- 
structions in regard to the northwestern as well as the north- 
eastern boundary."* 



(e) The following statement of Professor 
Bourne's is certainly incorrect. On page 289 he says 

"that Dr. Whitman's visit dispelled ignorance about Oregon or 
inspired enthusiasm are equally without foundation. No doubt 
he could contribute some facts of interest but * * • * « 
Fremont was under commission to explore the Rockies; * * 
* * * and Sub-Indian Agent White was writing frequent 
reports to his superiors at Washington. The ignorance and in- 
difference of government and the public are fictions of a later 
day." 



Here, the writer claims, are three misleading 
statements, omitting now any reference to what Dr. 
Whitman did, which will be considered later. (1) 
As to Fremont, while he may have been under com- 

*Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. 2, p. 260. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 47 

mission in March, 1843, he did not leave the frontiers 
of Missouri until the 29th of May, 1843, did not reach 
the Rockies, the eastern edge of Oregon, until Au- 
gust 20th, did not return to St. Louis until August 
6, 1844, and did not make his report in full to his 
superior officer until March 1, 1845.* 

(2) As to Dr. White. Perhaps he was writing 
frequent reports in March, 1843, but his book only 
speaks of four or five between 1842 and 1845, not one 
of which he says had left Oregon by April 1, 1843* 
Much ignorance these had dispelled and much en- 
thusiasm aroused by March, 1843 ! 

(3) As to the ignorance and indifference of gov- 
ernment and the public. That a part of both were 
neither ignorant or indifferent is granted, but that a 
very important part of both were ignorant and in- 
different must also be granted. In the United States 
Senate in 1844 a resolution was offered to give the 
necessary twelve months' notice to Great Britain for 
the termination of the treaty which granted to both 
nations "Joint Occupancy" to the then Oregon. It 
was lost by a vote of 28 to 18, various reasons being 
given, — fear of war, a bad effect on negotiations soon 
to be made, the worthlessness of the country and op- 
position to expansion. In regard to these latter 
points Mr. Dayton of New Jersey read from the 
Christian Advocate of February 7, 1844, as follows: 

"With, the exception of lands along the Willamette and 

♦Fremont's Exploring Expedition, edition of 1S50, pp. 123, 
125, 167, 426. 

♦White's Thrilling Adventures, pp. 171, 172. 



48 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

strips along a few of the water courses the whole country is 
among the most irreclaimable barren wastes of which we have 
read, except the desert of Sahara. Nor is this the worst of it. 
The climate is so unfriendly to human life that the native 
population has dwindled away under the ravages of its malaria 
to a degree which defies all history to furnish a parallel in so 
wide a range of country." 

Again he read from an article in the Louisville 
Courier, 

"Of all the countries on the face of this earth it (Oregon) is the 
least favored by heaven. It is the mere riddlings of creation. 
It is almost as barren as the desert of Africa, and quite as 

unhealthy as the campania of Italy Russia has 

her Siberia, and England her Botany Bay, and if the United 
States should ever need a country to which to banish its rogues 
and scoundrels, the utility of such a region as Oregon would be 
demonstrated. Until then we are perfectly willing to leave 
this magnificent country to the Indians, trappers and buffaloes 
that roam over its sand banks, and by the side of its rushing 
and unnavigable waters." 

Mr. Dayton says that this description was some- 
what below his estimate, yet he had no doubt that the 
accounts were substantially correct as applied to the 
country as a whole, though he had no doubt that 
there were some green spots in it. He then says, 

"Judging from all sources of authentic information to which I 
have had access, I should think the territory taken together a 
very poor region for agricultural purposes, and in that respect 
unworthy oi consideration of contest at the hands of this gov- 
ernment. How will the speedy settlement of Oregon affect us? 
In my judgment it must be injui'iously. The admission of Ore- 
gon as a state to the Union sems to me as undesirable on the 
one hand as it is improbable on the other; undesirable because 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 49 

that by the aid of representative principles we have already 
spread ourselves to a vast and almost unwieldiy extent. . . . 
God forbid that the time should ever come when a state on. 
the banks of the Pacific with its interests and tendencies of 
trade all looking toward the Asiatic nations of the east shall add 
its jarring claims to our already distracted and overburdened 
country." 

He then discusses the way of getting to it. Bj 
water is too far, 18,000 miles. His sport of the over- 
land trip is comical now. He says, 

"The power of steam has been suggested. Talk of steam com- 
munication — a railroad to the mouth of the Columbia — why 
look at the cost and bankrupt condition of railroads proceeding 
almost from your capital, traversing your great thoroughfares. 
A railroad across 2500 miles of prairie of desert and of moun- 
tain! The smoke of an engine across the terrible fissures o£ 
that rocky ledge where the smoke of a volcano only has rolled 
before! Who is to make this vast internal or rather external 
improvement — the state of Oregon, or the United States? 
Whence is to come the power? Who supply the means? The 
mines of Mexico and Peru, disembowelled, would scarcely pay 
a penny in the pound of the cost. Nothing short of the lamp 
of Aladdin will suflBce for such an expenditure. The extrava- 
gance of the suggestion seems to me to outrun everything which 
we know of modern visionary scheming. The South Sea bubble, 
the Dutchman's speculations in tulip roots, our own in town lots 
and multicaulis are all commonplace ploddings in comparison." 

Other senators said that if we obtained Oregon 
we could not hold it, as it would set itself up as an 
independent nation after a time. 

Mr. Archer said of what he thought to be the 
only valuable part of Oregon, the Willamette valley, 

"this was destitute of harborage and could never command any 



50 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

by art. The country taken in its whole extent could at no day 
certainly have a very large production nor any considerable 
trade."* 



Senator Winthrop of Massachusetts in 1844 
quoted and commended these sentences from Ben- 
ton's speech in 1825, (although in 1844 Benton had 
entirely changed his views) : 

"The ridge of the Rocky mountains may be named as a con- 
venient natural and everlasting barrier. Along this ridge the 
western limits of the Republic should be drawn, and the statue 
of the fabled God Terminus should be erected on its highest 
peak, never to be thrown down.* 

Senator McDuffie, in January, 1843, a little be- 
fore Dr. Whitman reached Washington, after ridicul- 
ing steam power, said : 

"I would not for that purpose (of agriculture) give a pinch of 
snuff for the whole territory. I wish the Rocky mountains were 
an impassable barrier. If there was an embankment of five 
feet to be removed I would not consent to expend five dollars 
to remove it, and enable our population to go there. I thank 
God for his mercy in placing the Rocky mountains there."* 



♦Congressional Globe, Vol. 13, p. 275, etc. 

*How Marcus Whitman saved Oregon, p. 41. 

*How Marcus Whitman saved Oregon, p. 42. It is a little 
refreshing to know that some of these statements were answer- 
ed by quotations from missionaries, as Messrs. Parker and 
Spalding, and that Mr. Wentworth of Illinois said January 24, 
1844: 'Religious enterprise and missionary zeal has done the 
most that has been done thus far for the settlement of Oregon.' 
Cong. Record, Vol. 13, p. 92. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 51 

And Mr. Webster, who was Secretary of State 
when Dr. Whitman was at Washington, said in 1846 
when much more information had been scattered, 
that the St. John river on the northeastern boundary 
of Maine was, 

"for all purposes of human use worth a hundred times as much 
as the Columbia was or ever would be."* 

Dr. Silas Reed says that when the subject of 
Oregon was called to the attention of the Senate it 
was treated with "a smile of indifference and impa- 
tience."* 

In addition to these statements of individuals 
the government was very slow about doing anything. 
Benton said that so far as the government was con- 
cerned it operated to endanger our title to the Col- 
umbia, to prevent emigrants and to incur the loss of 
the country. * * * * ^'The title to the country 
being thus endangered by the acts of the government, 
the saving of it devolved upon the i:)eople and they 
saved." In saying this he refers first to the emigra- 
tion of 1S43. 

"To check these bold adventurers was the object of government; 
to encourage them was the object of some western members of 
congress on whom (in conjunction with the people) the task 
of saving the Columbia evidently devolved."* 

♦Webster's speeches, Vol. 1, p. 102. 

♦Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. 2, p. 697. 

♦Benton's Thirty Years, Vol. 2, p. 469. By mistake he calls 
the emigration of 1843 "1842," and 1844 "1843." The one of 
1843 was the one Dr. "Whitman led safely through. 



52 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

Says Albert Gallatin in 1846, 

"It is a remarkable fact that although the convention has now 
been in force twenty-seven years, congress has actually done 
nothing for either of these objects (the promotion of emigra- 
tion, or the protection of our citizens in Oregon). Enterprising 
individuals have without any aid or encouragement by govern- 
ment opened a wagon road, eighteen hundred miles in length, 
through an arid or mountainous region and made settlements on 
or near the shores of the Pacific without any guaranty for the 
possession of the land improved by their labors."* 

The further indifference of government may be 
seen from the fact that it was more than two years 
after the treaty of 1846 was made before congress 
organized the territory of Oregon, notwithstanding 
the great desires of the people of Oregon to have it 
done. Because of Dr. Whitman's earnest appeal to 
the informal provisional Governor of Oregon, as he 
felt that there was great danger from the Indians 
unless the government should extend its protection 
over the people, Governor Abernethy sent J. Q. 
Thornton in 1847 to Washington to urge speedy ac- 
tion in the matter. He went by water. Because of 
the Whitman massacre soon after Judge Thornton 
left, the legislature of Oregon sent J. L. Meek in the 
winter of 1S47-S to Washington to still further show 
the need. The two worked together, and on the last 
day of the session, August 13, 1848, the territory of 
Oregon was organized by congress. But even fur- 
ther, congress showed its great zeal for the Oregon 
settlers (or more truly indifference) by not passing 

♦Oregon Question by Albert Gallatin, p. 36. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 53 

any law by means of which these thousands of Ore- 
gon settlers could have any title to their land for two 
years longer, until September, 1850. 

And yet now Professor Bourne says that the 
ignorance and indifference of the government and 
the people are fictions of a later day. Surely allow- 
ance can be made for Mr. Spalding, after going 
through the intense strain he did, if any can be made 
for Professor Bourne! 

The question is not how many pages had been 
printed by government in regard to Oregon, but 
what effect this information had had on those in 
authority. Millions of pages are issued now from 
the government printing presses, which the Senators 
never read, of whose contents they or the public know 
practically nothing, and which have no effect on gov- 
ernment. 



IV. In regard to the main question of Dr. 
Whitman's alleged services to the nation, six objec- 
tions are brought against it: That Dr. Whitman's 
chief object in going east was not to save Oregon to 
the United States, but to save his mission ; that when 
he was in Washington he accomplished nothing for 
Oregon; that it was impossible at that time for him 
or for any one to have done so because there was 
no danger of losing Oregon ; that the whole story was 
an immense afterthought gotten up for some special 
purpose; and that he did nothing worth mentioning 



54 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

to increase the immigration of 1843, or to get it 
through to the Columbia. 

As Prof. Bourne acknowledges that Dr. Whit- 
man went to Washington, no space will be given to 
this i^oint, although much has been written in pre- 
vious years to prove that he did not go there. 

A. The first objection is that Dr. Whitman's 
chief object was not to save Oregon when he went 
east. In answer, the evidence of several witnesses 
who saw the Doctor at that time will be introduced. 

(a) First witness — Rev. C. Eells, a co-worker 
with Dr. Whitman, who arrived in Oregon in 1838. 
In 1883 he said : 

"September, 1842, a' letter, written by Dr. Whitman, ad. 
dressed to Rev. Messrs. E. Walker and C. Eells at Tshimakain, 
reached its destination and was received by the persons to 
whom it was written. By the contents of said letter a meeting 
of the Oregon Mission of the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions was invited to be held at Waiilatpu. The 
object of said meeting, aa stated in the letter named, was to 
approve of a purpose formed by Dr. Whitman, that he go east 
on behalf of Oregon as related to the United States. In the 
judgment of Mr. Walker and myself that object was foreign to 
our assigned work. With troubled thoughts we anticipated 

the proposed meeting On Monday, a. m., we 

arrived at Waiilatpu, and met the two resident families of 
Messrs. Whitman and Gray. Rev. H. H. Spalding was there. 
All the male members of the mission were thus together. In 
the discussion the opinion of Mr. Walker and myself remained 
unchanged. The purpose of Dr. Whitman was fixed. In his 
estimation the saving of Oregon to the United States was of 
paramount importance, and he would make the attempt to do 
so, even if he had to withdraw from the mission in order to 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 55 

accomplish his purpose. In reply to considerations intended to 
hold Dr. Whitman to his assigned work, he said: 'I am not ex- 
patriated by becoming a missionary.' The idea of his with- 
drawal could not be entertained, therefore to retain him in the 
mission a vote to approve of his making the perilous endeavor 
prevailed."* 

Three points in regard to Dr. Eells's evidence 
have been advanced to show it to be untrustworthy. 
(1) That it does not agree with Kev. E. Walker's 
letter to the Board in 1842, endorsed by Mr. Eells, 
v.hich pleads strongly that the southern stations in 
the mission be continued (Bourne 71-2. Marshall 
228). This is another instance where, according to 
these writers the want of evidence in one place proves 
that the event did not take place. That letter simply 
discussed the subject which the board controlled and 
did not discuss v\ith them what was not their busi- 
ness. Neither did it discuss anything about the trip 
to Washington, or its relation to the protection of 
the emigrants, although Dr. Whitman had that in 
mind and planned to go to Washington before he 
left Oregon. 

(2) That this letter does not agree with Mr. 
Walker's journal, which states that the subject of 
going east was not discussed until Wednesday 
morning, the third day of the meeting. But Dr. 
Eells does not say how much of the meeting was 
spent in discussing Dr. Whitman's trip east but 
simply says that a part of two days was spent in con- 
sultation. If the journal proves anything, it proves 

♦Eells-Whitman Pamphlet, p. 9. 



56 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

too much for Prof. Bourne's side, as it says no more 
about Dr. Whitman going east on missionary busi- 
ness than it does on political business and says noth- 
ing about his going to Washington. If it proves that 
he did not go for national objects, it proves also that 
he did not go on missionary business or to Washing- 
ton. It is simply another instance of want of evi- 
dence. If now Dr. Eells or Mr. Walker were to rise 
from their graves and say that the letter was writ- 
ten and received as stated by Dr. Eells; that on re- 
ceiving it they disliked it, yet went to Dr. Whit- 
man's as requested; that the Doctor said nothing 
on the subject during the first two days, as Mr. 
Walker stated, and they said nothing, hoping per- 
haps that the Doctor had given up the idea; that 
other business was attended to, and that then on the 
28th he submitted to them his ideas of going east, — 
there would be no contradiction between the two. 
(The writer has acted that way several times and once 
escaped serious loss, having been asked previously 
to go on a bond, by seeming cold on the matter when 
he disliked to say yes, and disliked almost as much 
to say no, so that although the person had gone out 
of his way to ask for the final answer, yet on account 
of this coldness of the writer he was not asked. The 
result showed that if he had signed the bond he 
would have been obliged to pay considerable, the 
person asking having been appointed postmaster and 
afterwards proving to be a defaulter.) 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 57 

(3) Prof. Marshall says that Dr. Eells stated that 
Dr. Whitman's "single object" in going east was to 
save the country. He did, and it was a mistake 
Tvhich he afterwards corrected. When first asked 
about the object of the doctor in going east, the na- 
tional object had so filled Dr. Eells's mind because 
of its importance that it crowded out the remem- 
brance of the other objects. Dr. Treat objected to 
tlie words "single object," but before Dr. Eells learn- 
ed of this objection, on thinking of the matter he 
had changed it to the "all controlling object." This 
the writer has in two papers of his father's, with a 
copy of a third. 

The reader will notice the word "expatriated" 
in Dr. Eells's statement. Prof. Bourne (91) quotes 
a letter from Dr. Whitman to the board in which he 
uses the same word — an uncommon one. Dr. Eells 
wrote his statement in April, 1883, while it was not 
known on the Pacific coast until September, 1885, 
that the above mentioned letter of Dr. Whitman's 
was in existence. Hence Dr. Eells did not copy the 
word from that letter. 

Prof. Marshall also says in regard to Rev. C. 
Eells, 

"that as late as April, 1865, he denied to Hon. Elwood Evans 
the historian of Oregon, any knowledge of anything but mis- 
sionary business ,as impelling Whitman to make that ride." 
(235-6). 

The writer has questioned Professor Mar- 
shall in regard to his authoritv for this statement 



58 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

and in his reply the Professor says that Elwood Ev- 
ans wrote tlie same to him some seventeen years ago, 
and that he at or about that time printed the same 
statement in one of his newspaper articles.* 

In reply the writer declares that he will not be- 
lieve this statement until some better proof is given 
than this: for (1) the vrriter has every newspaper 
article that he ever heard of that Mr. Evans wrote 
on the subject, especially between 1881 and 1885, 
and there is not a hint of such a statement in any of 
these articles. Dr. Eells was then alive and the 
writer does not think Mr. Evans would have dared 
then to have made the statement. 

(2) The writer will not accept Mr. Evans's 
statement on the subject even if he did make it to 
Prof. Marshall, for as has already been shown, Mr. 
Evans made Mr. Eells say something in regard to 
the destruction of the records of the meeting of Sep- 
tember, 1812, which he did not say, and also made 
Mr. Webster say something he did not say. (See 
above p. 23). The writer calls for the letter, and 
feels sure that if his father had ever written such 
a letter he would have heard of it before the year 
1902, and also that in newspaper articles which he 
has by Mr. Evans, when he fully discussed Dr. Eells's 
evidence, Mr. Evans would have printed this letter. 

(b) Second witness — Dr. William Geiger, who 
came to Oregon in 1839, had charge of Dr. Whitman's 
station all the time he was east, except the first two 

♦Letter to writer dated, Feb. 5, 1902. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 59 

or three weeks, remained there three weeks after Dr. 
Whitman's return, was there again in 1845 and 184G, 
and had many conversations with him on the object 
of his journey- east. He said ( 1883 ) : 

"His main object in going east was to save the country to 
the United States, as he believed there was great danger of its 
falling into the hands of England. Incidentally he intended to 
obtain more missionary help."* 



(e) Third icltncss — Mrs. Mary R. Walker, wife 
of Eev. E. Walker, another member of the Oregon 
mission.* She said (1882) : 

"He [Dr. Whitman] went east in 1842, mainly to save the coun- 
try from falling into the hands of England, as he believed there 
was great danger of it. He had written Mr. Walker several 
times before about it. One expression I will remember he 
wrote about as follows: 'This country will soon be settled by 
the whites. It belongs to the Americans. It is a great and rich 
country. What a country this would be for Yankees? Why 
not tell them of it.' He was determined to go east on this busi- 
ness, even if he had to leave the mission to do so."* 



(d) Fourth ivitncss — Hon. A. Hinman, who 
came to Oregon in 1844, taught school at Dr. Whit- 
man's the next winter, went to the Willamette valley 
with Dr. Whitman the next June, in 1847 at the Doc- 
tor's request was temporarily in charge of the newly 
acquired station at The Dalles, is now living at 
Forest Grove, Oregon, has been a member of the 

*Mr. Walker died in 1877 before his controversy arose^ 
hence his testimony was not obtained. 
*Eells- Whitman Pamphlet, pp. 3, 11. 



<0 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

Oregon legislature and for twenty years president 
of the board of trustees of Pacific University. He 
says (1882) : 

"Dr. Whitman told me that he went east in 1842 with two ob- 
jects, one to assist the mission, the other to save the country 
to the UniteJ States. I do not think that he would have gone 
that winter had it not been that the danger seemed to him 
very great that the country would be obtained by England, but 
would have deferred the journey until Spring."* 

(e) Fifth loltness — Hon. A. L. Lovejoy, who 
came to Oregon in 1842, was Dr. Wliitman's travel- 
ing companion on his journey east, was afterwards 
a member of the Oregon legislature several times, 
president of its council (senate), attorney general 
of the territory, its chief justice, was mayor of Ore- 
gon City, and a member of the convention that form- 
ed the state constitution, few of the pioneers doing 
more than he did. He said (1876), after giving an 
account of the journey of himself and the Doctor to 
Bent's Fort: 

"Here we parted. The Doctor proceeded to Washington, I re- 
mained at Bent's fort until spring and joined the Doctor the 
following July near Fort Laramie on his way to Oregon in com- 
pany with a train of emigrants. He often expressed himself 
to me about the remainder of his journey, and the manner in 
which he was received at V/ashington and by the Board of For- 
eign Missions at Boston. He had several interviews with Pres- 
ident Tyler, Secretary Webster, and a good many members of 
congress, congress being in session at that time. He urged 
the immediate termination of the treaty with Great Britain 
relative to this country, and begged them to extend the laws 

*Eells-Whitman Pamphlet, p. 14. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 61 

of the United States over Oregon, and asked for liberal induce- 
ments to emigrants to come to this coast. He was very cor- 
dially and kindly received by the president and members of 
congress, and without doubt the doctor's interviews resulted 
greatly to the benefit of Oregon and to this coast."* 

Mrs. Lovejoy, who came in 1843, 

"assures us that he was aware of Whitman's aims and motives, 
knew that his great object in the journey was to save Oregon 
from British rule, and gives him credit in great part for accom- 
plishing his patriotic intention."* 

"The whole burden of Dr. Whitman's speech during the long 
ride, according to Mr. Lovejoy, was to immediately terminate 
the treaties of 1818 and 1828, and extend the laws of the United 
States over Oregon."* 

These statements will answer Prof. Bourne's 
quotations from Mrs. Lovejoy and D. P. Thompson 
made in 1900. (106-109) These were made much 
earlier and so according to Prof. Bourne's ideas are 
of much more value. 

(f) Six-th ivittiess — Hon. W.H. Gray, who was 

*Biography of Rev. G. H. Atkinson, D. D., p. 275. In the above 
question the writer is inclined to think that Gen. Lovejoy 
is mistaken when he says "congress being in session at the 
time," and that sentence is not in his statement of 1869. It 
has been very difficult to determine the exact date when Dr. 
Whitman was at Washington, but from a paper which he left 
at Boston it appears that he was at Westport, Mo., Feb. 15, and 
Boston, March 30. Probably he did not reach Washington in 
sixteen days, and then take twenty-six more to get to Boston. 
Besides J. M. Porter, with whom the doctor conferred, was not 
appointed secretary of war until March 8, which was after the 
adjournment of congress. 

♦Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Nov. 17, 1882, copied from The 
Willamette Farmer. 

♦Paper by Miss S. Barlow in Oregon Pioneer Transactions 
1895, p. 74. 



62 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

a member of the Oregon mission from 1836 to 1842. 
He savs that as the Doctor mounted his horse to start 
east he said, ''If the Board dismisses me I will do 
what I can to save m\ country."* And again, "My 
life is of but little worth if I can save the country for 
the American people." 

Prof. Bourne has learned that there was much 
ti'ouble between Mr. Gray and Dr. Whitman, and 
also between jNIr. Bpalding and Dr. Whitman, while 
they were in the mission together, so that Mr. Gray 
left it in September, 1812. Now the question may be 
very naturally asked, "Why then did these two gen- 
tlemen lie to exalt their enemy. Dr. Whitman, and 
why, if the story is all a legend, invented by Mr. 
Spalding, did Mr. Gray lie to support the statements 
of Mr. Si^alding, with whom he had so much diffi- 
culty?" 

(g) Seventh witness — Perrin B. Whitman, who 
was a nephew of Dr. Whitman, came with him to 
Oregon in 1813 and lived with him until 1S17, was 
at The Dalles with Mr. Hiumau at the time of the 
massacre. He said (1880) : 

"Dr. Whitman's trip east, in the winter of 1842-43, was for 
the double purpose of bringing an immigration across the plains, 
and also to prevent, if possible, the trading off of this north- 
west coast to the British government. * * * While crossing 
the plains I repeatedly heard the doctor express himself as 
being very anxious to succeed in opening a wagon road across 
the continent to the Columbia river, and thereby stay, if not 
entirely prevent, the trading of this northwest coast, then pend- 

*Gray's Histoiy of Oregon, p. 609. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 63 

ing between the United States and the British government. In 
after years the doctor, with much pride and satisfaction, re- 
verted to his success in bringing the immigration across the 
plains, and thought it one of the means of saving Oregon to his 
government." 

Again (1882) he added: 

"I heard him say repeatediy, on the journey and after we 
reached his mission, Waiilatpii-i, that he went to the states 
in the winter of 1842 and 1S43 for the sole purpose of bringing 
an immigration with wagons across the plains of Oregon."* 

Again in the Oregonian of December 4, 1895, is 
a long statement bv ^Ir. Whitman in wliich he tells 
Low in 1843 he heard his uncle tell this whole story 
to the Doctor's mother and Perrin's father in New 
York state, to Dr. 'Waldo in ^lissouri. and Rev. Mr. 
Eerrjman, superintendent of a Methodist mission 
there. 

(h) EUjliili witness — Eev. W. Barrows, D. D., 
who was at St. Louis teaching school when Dr. Whit- 
man arrived on his eastern journey, and boarded 

*Weekly Astorian, Dec. 17, 1880 and Eells-Whitman Pam- 
phlet, pp. 12, 13. Prof. Bourne tries to reject the testimony of 
Mr. Whitman because he was so young, thirteen years, when 
he came to Oregon. Does the Professor not expect boys of 
thirteen to remember what they have seen and heard? But he 
must remember that Perrin Whitman lived with his uncle 
until he was seventeen and surely many of the Professor's stu- 
dents are only that age. Professor Bourne tries to reject the 
testimony of Perrin Whitman because he was too young, and 
of Dr. Silas Reed because he was too old; and of Dr. Whitman, 
■who in 1847 was neither too old nor too young, because by 
that time he had changed his mind as to his purpose in going 
east! i. e., that Dr. Whitman did not know five years after he 
went east why he went so well as the Professor did fifty-seven 
years after. 



64 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

under the same roof with him at Dr. E. Hale's. He 

"The doctor was in great haste, and could not delay to talk 
of beaver and Indian goods, and wars, and reservations, and 
treaties. He had questions and not answers. Was the Ash- 
burton treaty concluded? Did it cover the northwest? Where 
and what and whose did it leave Oregon? He was soon answer- 
ed. Webster and Ashburton had signed that treaty on the 9th 
of August preceding. ************* 
Then instantly he had other questions for his St. Louis visitors. 
Was the Oregon question under discussion in congress? What 
opinions, projects or bills concerning it were being urged in 
senate and house? Would anything important be settled before 
the approaching adjournment on the fourth of March? Could 
he reach Washington before the adjournment? He must leave 
at once, and he went."* 

Prof. Bourne (40) says that Dr. Barrows was 
living in St. Louis in 1843 and saw Dr. Whitman 
there. This he must have learned from Dr. Bar- 
rows. If the professor accepts this statement of 
the Doctor, why does he not also accept what Dr. 
Barrows says about Dr. Whitman's object in going 
east? W^hy accept one of his statements and reject 
the other? 

(i) Ninth witness — Dr. Edward Hale. He says 
(1871): 



"I had the pleasure of entertaining Dr. Whitman at St. 
Louis on his last visit eastward to confer with the president 
and heads of departments in relation to the settlement of the 

♦Barrows, Oregon, p. 174, and New York Observer, Dec. 21, 
1882. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 6S 

northeastern boundary question with Great Britain by bartei*- 
ing away for a song the whole of the northwest Pacific ter- 
ritory. Also on his return to Oregon, my house was his home 
while in St. Louis."* 

(j) Tenth witness — Dr. S. J. Parker of Ithaca, 
N. Y., a son of the Rev. S. Parker who went to Ore- 
gon in 1835, and who (the son) was then (in 1843) 
twenty-four years old. He wrote: 

"I was at home in the room in which I now write (as I owe 
the old homestead) when Dr. Whitman unexpectedly arrived 
in a rather rough, but not as outlandish a dress as some writers 
say he had on. After the surprise of his arrival was over, he 
said to my father, 'We must both go at once to Washington, or 
Oregon is lost, ceded to the English.' "* 

(k) Eleventh ivitness — John Tyler, jr., son of 
President John Tyler, and his private secretary. He 
remembered Dr. Whitman very well, remembered 
that he was in Washington in 1842-3, full of his pro- 
ject to carry emigrants to Oregon, that he waited on 
the president, and received from him the heartiest 
concurrence in his plan.* 

(1) Twelfth witness — Dr. Silas Reed. He says^ 



"The following winter, 1842-3, Dr. Whitman, the Oregoa 
missionary, returned to the east, and furnished valuable dat* 
about Oregon and the practicability of a wagon route thereto 
across the mountains, and emigration thither rapidly increased, 

♦Letter to H. H. Spalding, now in possession of the writec. 

♦Letter to the writer Feb. 16, 1883. Eells-Whitman Pant- 
phlet, p. 15. 

♦Mowry's Marcus Whitman, p. 172. 



66 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

thus aiding in, securing a more speedy passage of Dr. Linn's 
Oregon bill."* 



Prof. Bourne thinks that probably this refers to 
Dr. White, because Linn's bill had passed the sen- 
ate before Dr. Whitman's arrival. It may be, but it 
is just as probable that Dr. Reed's memory was at 
fault in regard to the time of the passage of the bill 
as that he confounded Dr. White with Dr. Whitman, 
for Dr. White was not there in 1842-3, and there is 
no evidence that he furnished any valuable informa- 
tion about a wagon route across the mountains. 

(m) Thirteenth witness — Rev. Gustavus Hines, 
a member of the early Methodist mission of Oregon, 
who came to Oregon in 1840 and left in 1845. He 
says in his journal of April 14, 1843: 

"The arrival of a large party of emigrants about this time 
[1842] and the sudden departure of Dr. Whitman to the United 
States, with the avowed intention of bringing back with him 
as many as he could enlist for Oregon, served to hasten them 
[the Indians] to the above conclusion," that is, that there was 
"a deep laid scheme of the whites to destroy them and take pas- 
session of their country."* 

(n) Fourteenth ivitness — Dr. Whitman. "April 
1, 1847 he wrote to the American board as follows : 

"It was to open a practical route and safe passage and 
secure a favorable report of the journey from the emigrants, 
which in connection with other objects caused me to leave my 

♦Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. 2, p. 697. 
*Hines, Oregon, p. 143. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 67 

family and brave the toils and dangers of the journey, not- 
withstanding the unusual severity of the winter and the great 
depth of snow."* 



Prof. Bourne tries to get rid of this evidence by 
saying "as tlie years passed, Dr. Wliitman attached 
so much importance to his services to the emigra- 
tion that he evidently came to regard such a service 
as the purpose of his journey to the east." (97). Yet 
Prof. Bourne still clings to the idea that it was an 
incidental and minor purpose. It is singular with 
what persistence the opponents of the idea that Dr. 
Whitman did anything to save Oregon cling to their 
position. First there was no evidence worth con- 
sidering, and when ten witnesses who were acquaint- 
ed with the doctor say that he told them that he 
went with national intent, then they cannot accept 
this evidence because it is from memory, and wish 
for scientific testimony — written at the time; and 
when Dr. Whitman's own statements are produced, 
"v\hich are scientific, they say that he claimed for 
himself a purpose five years afterward, that he did 
not have in 1842, that he told a falsehood because he 
saw what an advantage it would be to him to make 
the claim! Prof. Bourne claims to have learned it 
better fifty-eight years later than Dr. Whitman did 
five years later. 

There are five points in addition from cir- 
cumstantial evidence. 



♦Missionary Herald, 1S85, p. 350, 



68 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

(o) Dr. Whitman went to Washington before he 
went to Boston. If his object in going east was sole- 
ly to save his mission, why did he go to Washington? 
After the troubles which the American Board had 
with the government w^hen the Cherokees were re- 
moved to the Indian territory and one of their mis- 
sionaries was imprisoned, the Board had just as lit- 
tle to do with the government as possible. The gov- 
ernment would not help Dr. Whitman to induce the 
American Board to rescind any order of theirs. 

(p) If his main object in going east was to se- 
cure the rescinding of an order of the Board, why 
did he go to Washington first? He would certainly 
have gone to Boston first. When Rev. Jason Lee 
Avent east in 1838 carrying a petition to government 
from the citizens of Oregon, he hastened first to 
report to his home board at New York. Not so Dr. 
Whitman. One went mainly for missionary pur- 
poses, the other mainly for national purposes. 

(q) He left his station October third, when the 
fifth was the day he told Messrs Walker and Eells 
that he would go. Letters were to be prepared and 
forwarded accordingly. They reached his station 
October fifth, but he was gone. One of these letters 
is now in the possession of the writer. It is a long, 
strong plea for the continuance of the southern sta- 
tions of the mission. Why did he leave that letter, 
(written by the moderator of the meeting and en- 
dorsed by its clerk), which would have been of great 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 69 

help to him, if his main object had been to secure 
the rescinding of the above mentioned order? 

(r) Although the order had been given to dis- 
continue those stations, yet in view of changed con- 
ditions the mission had voted to continue them until 
word could be sent to Boston and a reply received, 
and did so. Was it necessary for him to risk his 
life to secure what he had already temporarily se- 
cured, when his station would have been certainly 
continued had he waited until spring to go? 

(s) At first he was not cordially received at 
Boston. Says Dr. Geiger: 

"Mr. Hill, treasurer of the Board, said to liim in not a very 
pleasant way, 'what are you here for, leaving your post?' " 

Says P. B. Whitman: 

"The Board censured him in very strong terms for leaving 
his post of duty; also informed him that they had no money 
to spend in opening the western country to settlement." 

Says Dr. Whitman in a letter to the Board dated 
April 1, 1847 : 

"I often reflect on the fact that you told me you were sorry 
I came." (East). 

After this he speaks of the great value of his 
services to the emigration, and of the influence that 
emigration virtually had in securing Oregon to the 



70 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

United States. Now why was the Board so sorry he 
went, if he went solely or mainly to help his mission? 
With all this evidence the author would con- 
sider himself unreasonable not to believe that Dr. 
Whitman went east in order to do what he could 
to save Oregon. 



B. The second objection is that Dr. Whitman 
accomplished nothing at Washington. 
(a) Says Dr. W. Geiger: 

"Either himself or brother had been a classmate of the 
secretary of war, and Dr. Whitman went to him and through 
him obtained an introduction to Secretary Webster. But Web- 
ster said that it was too late, that he had signed the papers 
and given them to the president. He would not introduce him 
to the president. Dr. Whitman went back to the secretary 
of war, and through him obtained an introduction to the presi- 
dent, who heard his statements of the value of Oregon, and the 
possibility of taking an emigration there. At last the president 
promised to wait before proceeding further in the business, 
until Dr. Whitman should see whether he could get the emi- 
gration through. 'That is all I want,' said Dr. Whitman. He 
immediately sent back word to Missouri to those who wished 
to go, and had it published in the papers and in a pamphlet. 

"If Dr. Whitman told me this once, he told it to me perhaps 
twenty times. He told it to me first on his return at Mr. Spald- 
ing's station, as I was there temporarily on account of sickness 
in Mr. Spalding's family. About the same time he told Mr. 
Spalding the same. He afterwards told it to us both, and in 
riding together afterwards on the road he said the same, and 
these repeated statements, which were always precisely alike, 
impressed it on my mind, or I might perhaps have forgotten 
them. As far as I know, he told this only to Mr. Spalding and 
myself, and said he had his reasons for not telling everybody."* 

*Eells-Whitmaji Pamphlet, p. 3. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 71 

Again Dr. Geiger says : 

"Dr. Whitman praised the country as of immense value to 
the United States and said that he had heard that there was a 
possibility of its being transferred to Great Britain. But Web- 
ster replied, 'you are too late, doctor, Oregon is already bar- 
gained away.' " 

He spoke of the distance, the worth'lessness 

of the countrj', and of the impossibility of making roads to 
Oregon. Finally he said that the question had been considered 
and turned over to Pre^sident Tyler, who could sign Oregon 
away or refuse to do so, but so far as he had an interest in it, 
it was already decided and had passed entirely from his hands. 

'Through the secretary of war, Dr. Whitman was then 
introduced to the president and for three or four hours they 
talked about the country. Finally the president said that if 
they could get a wagon road across from the western frontier 
that fact would settle the question, but if it could neither be 
practically settled by land or by sea, as claimed, it would be 
better to let the country go than to try to retain, settle and 
defend it. Dr. Whitman responded, 'Hold on and I will take an 
emigration and their wagons through next summer.' Ttey 
talked it all over, and the Doctor explained his plans at length. 
The president said he had signed no papers and would hold 
now to see the issue of the Doctor's undertaking. 'If you suc- 
ceed,' he said, 'we will keep Oregon.' And this was the stimulus 
which made the Doctor so persevering on that point all the 
next summer. Dr. Whitman replied most emphatically, bring- 
ing his hand down most vigorously on his thigh. 'I'll talie 
them through.' And as Dr. Whitman and Dr. Geiger rode 
along from Lapwai to Walla Walla, he exultingly added, strik- 
ing another significant blow with his hand, 'And I have brought 
them through.'* 

(b) Says Eev. H. H. Spalding: 

"The doctor pushed on to Washington, and immediately 

♦Article by S. A. Clarke in the Oregonian, June 1, 1895, 
from information obtained ten years before. 



n REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE 

sought an interview with Secretary Webster — both being from 
the same state — and stated to him the object of his crossing 
the mountains, and laid before him the great importance of 
Oregon to the United States. But Mr. Webster lay too near 
Cape Cod to see things in the same light with his fellow stites- 
man, who had transferred his worldly interests to the Pacific 
coast. He awarded sincerity to the missionary, but could not 
admit for a moment that the short residence of six years could 
give the doctor the knowledge of the country possessed by 
Governor Simpson, who had almost grown up in the couatry, 
and had traveled every part of it, and represents it as one un- 
Broken waste of sand deserts and impassable mountains, fit 
only for the beaver, the gray bear and the savage. * * • * 
"The doctor next sought through Senator Linn an interview 
with President Tyler, who at once appreciated his solicitude, 
and his timely representations of Oregon, and especially his 
disinterested though hazardous undertaking to cross the Rocky 
mountains in winter to take back a caravan of wagons. He 
said that although the doctor's representations of the character 
of the country, and the possibility of reaching it by wagon 
route, were in direct contradiction to those of Governor Simp- 
son, his frozen limbs were a suflBcient proof of his sincerity, 
and his missionary character were a sufiicient guaranty for 
his honesty, and he would therefore as president rest upon 
these and act accordingly; would detail Fremont with a military 
force to escort the doctor's caravan through the mountains; 
and no more action should be had toward trading off Oregon 
till he could hear the results of the expedition. If the doctor 
«ould establish a wagon route through the mountains to the 
Columbia river, pronounced impassable by Governor Simpson 
and Ashburton, he would use his influence to hold on to Oregon. 
The great desire of the doctor's American soul. Christian withal, 
that is, the pledge of the president that the swapping of Ore- 
gon with Ehgland for a cod fishery should stop for the present, 
was attained, although at the risk of life, and through great 
Bufferings, and unsolicited and without the promise or expec- 
tation of a dollar's reward from any source. And now, God 
giving him life and strength, he would do the rest, that is, con- 
nect the Missouri and Columbia rivers with a wagon track so 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 73 

deep and plain that neither national envy nor sectional fanatic- 
ism would ever blot it out."* 

(c) Says Hon. W. H. Gray: 

"I met him in Oregon City in my own home, after his re- 
turn from Washington. Spent an afternoon and evening with 
him, and learned of him the result of his visit to Washington, 
and the treatment he received from Webster and from the Pru- 
dential Board or Committee of Missions.* 

"What I learned from Dr. Whitman personally was: Mr. 
Webster was favorable to making a change of the eastern 
boundary, and giving the western or Oregon country for what 
had recently been in dispute, as Mr. Webster thought it would 
be a good exchange; and was not induced to listen to his (Dr. 
Whitman's) reasons against such a change. But the president 
listened more favorably, and said no such change or giving up 
of Oregon should be made, if he could get wagons and an emi- 
gration into Oregon. * * * Mr. Webster was strongly in 
favor of the Newfoundland codflshery. He was held in check 
by Benton, Adams and others. Benton had a better knowledge 
of Oregon than Webster, who had been or become unpopular 
for his yielding on the Eastern or Maine question with Ash- 
burton. The petition that had been sent by the missionaries, 
and the statements made by different parties, added to the 
personal representations made by Dr. Whitman, as to the 
practicability of a wagon route, and the fact that the doctor's 
mission in 1836 had taken cows and wagons to Fort Boise, and 
that they could be taken to the Columbia river, — that fact, 
as affirmed by Dr. Whitman, stopped all speculations about 
giving up Oregon, till the practical road question was settled."* 



*Executive Document No. 37, 41st congress, third session, 
p. 22. 

*Eells-Whitman Pamphlet, p. 19. 

*Pamphlet by W. H. Gray, Did Dr. Whitman save Oregon, p 
17. 



74 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

(d) Says Perrin B. Whitman: 



"Secretary Webster received him coolly. He said he al- 
most 'snubbed him,' but the president, Mr. Tyler, treated him 
and the possibility of a wagon road across the plains to the 
Columbia river, with a just consideration. He, the president, 
gave the doctor a hearing, and promised him that the Ash- 
burton treaty, then pending [a mistake], would not be signed 
until he would hear of the success or failure of the doctor in 
opening a wagon road to the Columbia river."* 

Again, after speaking of a visit of himself and 
the Doctor to the Doctor's mother, he added: 

"He was of course pressed to extend his visit, but he al- 
ways replied that he would sacrifice not only the pleasure of 
a visit with his mother, but all else in the world rather than 
fail to meet an engagement to be on the west side of the Mis- 
souri river at the appointed time to conduct a party of Am- 
erican citizens across the plains. He said 'they have my 
pledges to guide a wagon train to the Columbia river before 
the summer is over.' During the visit with his mother and my 
father I heard him say repeatedly that he had been to Wash- 
ington City, and had had an interview with President Tyler 
about the colonization of Oregon with American citizens. He " 
said also that the president promised anxiously to wait for 
news of the success or failure of the attempt to cross the 
mountains to the shores of the Columbia with wagons. The 
success or failure of the effort would in a measure determine 
the question of title to the Oregon country. I know Dr. Whit- 
man carried home to the Pacific this promise from President 
Tj'^ler and that the ambition to save Oregon to the United 
States spurred him on to great self-sacrifice and labor that re- 
quired almost more than mortal strength." ****** 



*Eells-Whitman Pamphlet, p. 13. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 75 

Then in speaking of their sojourn at Westport, 
Missouri, he added : 

"The doctor remained for a time at the house of Dr. Waldo, 
a brother of the Oregon pioneer, Hon. Daniel Waldo. He gave 
Dr. Waldo an account of his trip across the great plains and em- 
phasized the fact that it was made to save the Pacific northwest 
to the United States government. His whole soul was in the suc- 
cess of the wagon journey to the banks of the Columbia and he 
assured Dr. Waldo that the president had promised him to with- 
hold the transfer of the territory to the British until he learned 
whether he succeeded or not. He talked of this object of his 
visit with the enthusiasm of a sanguine nature, and he had 
but one object, to save Oregon. While waiting for the large 
train of immigrants to organize for the journey Dr. Whitman 
visited for a week with Rev. Berryman, superintendent of 
the Methodist Indian mission. During that visit I heard him 
repeat the substance of that interview with the oflBcials in 
Washington City, ana recite his hopes and fears about the 
dangers and blessings upon the failure or success of his effort 
to colonize Oregon with true Americans."* 



(e) Says Judge J. Otis, after describing an in- 
terview he had at Buffalo, N. Y., with the Doctor in 
the spring of 1843: 

"They [the president and cabinet] were called together 
and Dr. Whitman spent an evening with the cabinet answer- 
ing their questions and giving them his views as to the im- 
portance of Oregon and the steps that needed to be taken in 
ordei* to secure it for this country."* 

(f) M. de Saint Amant was an envoy of the 
French government to Oregon in 1851-2 and pub- 



*Oregonian, Dec. 4, 1895. 
♦Missionary Herald, 1S85, p. 884. 



76 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

lished a book "Voyages in California and Oregon" 
at Paris in 1854. In speaking of Dr. Whitman he 
says : 

"Having preceded tlie taking possession of the country by 
"his fellow citizens he became a very active agent of the Am- 
erican interests, and contributed in no small degree to annexa- 
tion, but in spite of all he did for them [the Indians], he did 
■Jiot realize that his standing and influence would not always 
prevail against the consequences of the superstition of the 
.savages and he fell a victim to it with his family." (pp. 223-4). 

Prof. Bourne says in regard to this that it has 
reference to Dr. Whitman's entire work down to 
1847 and says nothing about the year 1842-3 ; that he 
probably derived his information from Bishop 
Brouillet or some of his missionary colleagues, and 
that the assertion about the tendency of Whitman's 
political activity is hardly more than a natural de- 
duction from such statements as Brouillet made in 
his pamphlet. 

But the writer asks, if Dr. Whitman contributed 
in no small degree to annexation, when he did it, if 
not during 1842-3. Was it before he went east? or 
after he had come back, when there was no possible 
danger of Oregon being lost. If Prof. Bourne be- 
lieves this, he believes that of which there is not a 
thousandth part of the proof as compared with the 
claim that he contributed in 1842-3, but if it is so the 
writer would be very glad to have him prove it. If 
Saint Amant learned this from some of the Catholic 
priests, then it was a matter of public knowledge at 
.that time. There is a hint here too that the report 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. IT 

was that Dr. Whitman lost his life because of his 
political activity. 

(g) Dr. Whitman wrote November 5, 1846, to 
Rev. L. P. Judson: 

"I had adopted Oregon as my country as well as the In- 
dians for my field of labor, so that I must superintend the im- 
migration of that year, [1843] which was to lay the foundation 
for the speedy settlement of the country if prosperously con- 
ducted and safely carried through; but if it failed i and became- 
disastrous, the reflex influence would be to discourage for a 
long time any further attempt to settle the country across the- 
mountains, which, would be to see it abandoned altogether. * *" 

* * * * I have returned to my field of labor and in my 
return brought a large immigration of about a thousand indi- 
viduals safely through the long, and the last part of it an un- 
tried route to the western shores of the continent. * * * • 

• * * It is quite important that such a country as Oregon 
should not .on one hand fall into the exclusive hands of the 
Jesuits, nor on the other under the English government."* 

Again, April 1, 1847, soon after he heard of the 
treaty which settled the Oregon question, he wrote 
to his home Board : 

"I often reflect on the fact that you told me you were sorry 
I came east. It did not then nor has it since altered my opin- 
ion in the matter. American interests acquired in the coun- 
try which the success of the immigration in 1843 alone did and 
could have secured, have become the foundation of the late 
treaty between England and the United States in regard to 
Oregon. ****** it demonstrates what I did in mak- 
ing my way to the states in the winter of 1842-3, after the 
third of October. ******* Anyone can see that 
American interests as now acquired have had more to do in 

♦Transactions Oregon Pioneer Association 1893, p. 200. 



78 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

securing the treaty than our original rights. From 1835 till 
now it has been apparent that there was a choice of only two 
things, (1) the increase of British interests to the exclusion 
of all other rights lU the country, or (2) the establishment of 
American interests by citizens" [on the ground.] 

Again, October 18, 1847, he wrote to the same 
Board : 

"Two things, and it is true those which were most import- 
ant were accomplished by my return to the states. By means 
of the establishment of the wagon road, which is due to that 
effort alone, the immigration was secured and saved from 
disaster in the fall of 1843. Upon that event the present ac- 
quired rights of the United States by her citizens hung, and 
not less certain is it that upon the result of that immigra- 
tion to this country the present existence of Protestantism 
hung also."* 



There is no doubt but that Dr. Whitman, after 
his experience at Washington and with the emigra- 
tion of 1843, knew what he was saying fully as well 
as those who from thirty-five to sixty years after- 
wards, have denied him any national intent or suc- 
cess. These statements of his fit into those of Messrs. 
Geiger, Gray, Spalding and P. B. Whitman exactly 
as a tenon does into a mortise. 



C. The third objection is that in 1843 it was 
impossible for Dr. Whitman or any one to have done 
anything to save Oregon, because it was in no danger 

•Missionary Herald, Sept. 1885. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 79 

of being lost. Here the question very seriously arisa<3, 
shall we accuse all these witnesses of falsehood and 
reject all their evidence, that of Messrs. Geiger, Gray, 
P. B. Whitman, Lovejoy and Marcus Whitman, as 
well as that of Mr. Spalding, or is there some way of 
reconciling apparent differences? In the writer's 
opinion it is not necessary to reject their statements, 
for he believes that so much light has already been 
found that no one need be accused of falsehood. It 
can be shown that in the main their statements and 
the actual condition of affairs at Washington may be 
reconciled, although it is true that no evidence has 
been found that any treaty was then in progress and 
no state papers have been found which speak of 
Webster trading Oregon for the Newfoundland cod- 
fishery. 

(1) First we will consider Webster's position, 
because he had already negotiated the Ashburton 
treaty in which Oregon was considered, because he 
was in March, 1843, secretary of state, and so a very 
important factor in whatever might be done in re- 
gard to the question, and because he was remaining 
in the cabinet with the hope of being the one who 
would negotiate the treaty which would settle the 
Oregon question. The plan of the administration 
was this: Either a special mission to England on 
which it was expected that Mr. Webster would be 
sent in order that he might be better able to negotiate 
the treaty, or a mission to China to which Mr. Everett 
then our minister to England, would be transferred, 
thus allowing Mr. Webster to go to England in Mr. 



80 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

Everett's place, where he could still negotiate the 
treaty. But the special mission to England was 
voted down in the senate committee, the mission to 
China passed congress but Mr. Everett declined to go 
to China and so Mr. Webster failed to go to England. 
Thus his hopes of reaching England for that pur- 
pose died, and as this had been his main reason for 
remaining in the cabinet, he soon resigned, and then 
passed forever all danger of England gaining even 
that part of Oregon north of the Columbia and south 
of the forty-ninth parallel or any more further south.* 
But in March, 1843, Mr. Webster had not given 
up these hopes, and so it is very necessary to know 
his position. True, in 1846, in a speech before the 
senate, he said that when he made the Ashburton 
treaty in 1842 he had told Lord Ashburton, "The gov- 
ernment of the United States has never offered any 
line south, of forty-nine degrees and it never will.'^ 
As far as the last sentence "it never will," is con- 
cerned it was merely his opinion in 1842 and as he 
was not a prophet it might have been done had cir- 
cumstances seemed to warrant it. As far as the first 
sentence is concerned Mr. Benton gives the reason, 
namely that the two senators from Missouri (Benton 
and Linn) having been 

"sounded on th© subject of a conventional divisional line, re- 
pulsed, the suggestion with an earnestness which put an end 
to it. If they had yielded the valley of the Columbia would have 
been divided."* 

♦Quarterly, Oregon Historical Society, Sept. 1900, p. 240; 
Adams Memoirs, Vol. 11, 327, etc., 345 etc.; Sohouler, Vol. 4, 436, 
etc,, and Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. 2, pp. 262-3. 

♦Benton's Thirty Years, Vol. 2, p. 476. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 81 

Mr. Benton gives as the reason why they were 
sounded the following: That various senators were 
sounded on points in which they were greatly inter- 
ested so that when the vote would be taken in the 
senate in regard to confirming the treaty a majority 
would be pledged to vote in favor of it. But this 
statement shoAvs that in 1842 Mr. Webster was will- 
ing to yield the country north of the Columbia with- 
out any equivalent being given to England to it. 

In fact as regards the navigation of the Columbia 
and the straits, sounds and islands of Puget Sound, 
he said publicly that he did not stand firm for this 
in 1842. His words are, (1846). 

"the use of the Columbia river by England, permanently or for 
a number of years, and the use of the straits and sounds in the 
adjacent sea, and the islands along the coast, would be all mat- 
ters for friendly negotiation."* 



Think of our being in a war with England and 
she by treaty having the use of the Columbia river 
permanently ! 

Mr. Webster's idea of the value of Oregon may 
be gathered from his speech in 1846 (when immense- 
ly more was known of its value than in 1843) in 
which he said that the St. John river on the north- 
east boundary of Maine was for all purposes of hu- 
man use worth a hundred times as much as the Col- 
umbia was or ever would be.* 

*Works of Daniel Webster, Vol. 5, p. 77. 
♦Webster's speeches. Vol. 5, p. 102. 



82 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

Twiss, an English writer, said in 1846 that Web- 
ster's anticipations were that Oregon would form at 
some not very distant day, because of its geograph- 
ical position, an independent confederation.* 

This was not an uncommon idea, for Albert Gal- 
latin argued in favor of its probability and said 
that Jefferson had had the same idea.* 

Mr. Webster also wrote to Edward Everett in 
regard to Oregon, November 25, 1842, 

"I doubt exceedingly whether it is an inviting country for 
agricultural settlers. At present there are not above seven hun- 
dred white persons in the whole territory, both sidesi of the 
river from California to latitude fifty-four."* 

Again when there was a proposition before the 
senate for a mail route from Independence, Mo., to 
the mouth of the Columbia Mr. Webster, after de- 
nouncing the measure generally said : 

"What do you want of that vast and worthless area? this 
region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands, 
and whirlwinds of Just, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what 
use could we ever hope to put those great deserts, and those 
endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their 
very base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do 
with the western coast, a coast of three thousand miles, rock 
bound, cheerless, uninviting and not a harbor on it? What use 
have we for this country?"* 

*Twiss' History of Oregon, Ed. 1846, p. 264. 

*Gallatin's Oregon Question, p. 48. 

*Von Hoist's Constitutional Hist., U. S., Vol. 3, p. 51. 

*The writer cannot give the book and page where this' is 
to be found. It is a part of a reply of Mrs. C. S. Pringle to Mrs. 
F. F. Victor's attack on Dr. Whitman, written Dec. 1, 1884, which 
the writer has in manuscript. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 83 

In 1845 in opposing the admission of Texas he 
said: 

"The government is very likely to be endangered in my 
opinion by a further enlargement of the territorial surfac© al- 
ready so vast, over which it is extended,"* 

thus placing himself plainly against expansion after 
Dr. Whitman went east. Here we have then Mr. 
Webster's position : Oregon not worth much, not a 
hundredth part as much as the valley of the St. 
John's, not wanted because the United States already 
had as much territory as she ought to have, and be- 
cause it might set itself up as independent even if the 
United States should obtain a nominal title to it, and 
he was ready to yield all north of the Columbia river 
in 1842. And he was secretary of state, the one to 
largely influence our business with foreign countries ! 

(2) But more than this, there was talk of trad- 
ing off Oregon. In 1827 a resolution had been intro- 
duced into congress by Mr. Knight of Rhode Island, 
asking the president to open negotiations with Great 
Britain to exchange Oregon for Upper Canada. In 
1844 Mr. Choate, senator from Massachusetts, Mr. 
Webster's state (Mr. Webster not then being in the 
senate) hinted again at equivalents for Oregon. This 
alarmed Mr. Breese of Illinois, who did not know 
what was meant unless it might be money, or some- 
thing like Mr. Knight's idea of 1827. 

In a speech of Senator D. R. Atchison of Mis- 

♦Barrows' Oregon, p. 200. 



84 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE, 

souri as late as February 22, 1844, in congress he 
said : 

"Give us the countenance of our government; give us your 
protection; give us government and laws, and we will soon fill 
up the country (Oregon); we will take possession of it, and we 
will keep that possession. Do but assure us that we will not be 
traded off, that we are not to become British subjects, that we 
are to remain members of this glorious republic, we will take 
possession and we will keep that possession in defiance of Brit- 
ish power."* 



He would never have said this had he not known 
that there was danger that Oregon would be traded 
oflf. 

Still further in 1844 a bill was introduced be- 
fore the senate asking for all the correspondence 
and instructions on the subject of Oregon since 
March 4, 1841. In January, 1844 Mr. Benton while 
discussing this bill said : 

"The senator from Ohio, Mr. Allen, has read you a part of 
the debate in parliament in February last [1843, just before Dr. 
Whitman reached Washington,] in which the British minister, 
Sir Robert Peel, has made a very extraordinary declaration — a 
declaration in full terms — that President Tyler has made propo- 
sitions on the subject of Oregon, which would render it impos- 
sible for him to have signed the bill which passed the senate at 
the last session, to grant land to the Oregon settlers. His word, 
is 'impossible.' " 

The bill before the senate however was lost by a 
vote of 31 to 14, the correspondence was not obtained 
and the writer has been unable to learn certainly 

*See Oregonian, Nov. 26, 1897. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 85 

what that communication was by the president to 
Great Britain. But it is plain from this that some 
very important paper had at that time been sent to 
England, the contents of which threatened the pos- 
session of Oregon by the United States. It may, 
however have referred to the tri-partite plan, which 
will soon be explained and which neither England 
nor the United States could have settled without the 
consent of Mexico. 

Other items too are significant. In December, 
1842, the senate requested of President Tyler infor- 
mation about the Oregon question. His reply was 
that he had in his annual message stated that he 
should not delay to urge on Great Britain the im- 
portance of an early settlement. He added : 

"Measures have been already taken in pursuance of the 
purpose thus expressed, and under these circumstances I do not 
■deem it consistent with the public interest to make any com- 
munication on the subject."* 

Yet none of these measures have been found, 
that is official ones, but simply private letters and 
papers to some of which reference will here be made. 
No official ones have been found until October 9, 1843. 

There was a tripartite plan under considera- 
tion.* England, Mexico and the United States were 
toi be the three parties in it. English capitalists had 
loaned Mexico some ten million pounds, which was 
secured on lands in Senora, Chihuahua, California 

♦Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 4, p. 211. 
♦Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. 2, p. 260-1. 



86 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

and New Mexico. Because of this England had an 
influence in Mexican affairs. Texas had then re- 
cently seceded from Mexico and was trying to estab- 
lish her independence. Knowing of this influence of 
Great Britain, President Tyler sought by this "tri- 
partite treaty to secure the independence of Texas 
as well as the cession of California to the United 
States, as far south as thirty-six degrees, on 
England's contributing a certain sum for its 
purchase, in return for the line of the Columbia as 
the boundary of Oregon." England had from 1818 
insisted on this line, while the United States had in- 
sisted on the line of forty-nine degrees. But for 
some years government had thought of the value 
of California and had been quietly exploring parts 
of it. Commodore Wilkes in 1811 had praised the 
harbor of San Francisco as "one of the fine^it, if not 
the very best harbor in the world." When Lord Ash- 
burton was in the United States in the summer of 
1812 he had been asked if he thought England v» ould 
make any objections to the United States obtaining 
that part of California north of thirty-six degrees 
and replied that he thought not. The south was will- 
ing, for she wanted more slave-holding territory. 
President Tyler was a strong southern man from Vir- 
ginia, who in 1861 helped to vote his state out of the 
Union in the state convention. Webster was from 
the far east and we already know his ideas of Ore- 
gon. England gave her consent to this tripartite 
agreement. President Tyler wrote about January, 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 87 

1843 to Daniel Webster in regard to this arrange- 
ment : 

"The three interests would be united and would satisfy all 
sections of the country. Texas might not stand alone, nor would 
the line proposed for Oregon. Texas would reconcile all to the 
line, while Califoi*nia would reconcile or pacify all to Oregon." 

Again lie wrote to Mr. Webster a letter marked 
"private." 

"A single suggestion as to our conversation this morning. 
The assent of Mexico to such a treaty is all that is necessary 
as to all its parts. A surrender of her title is all that will be 
•wanting. The rest will follow without an effort."* 

General Almonte, Mexican minister at Washing- 
ton, was interviewed on the subject. He at first de- 
clined, but at last gave way. The president so far 
succeeded as to lay the subject before congress, pro- 
posing either a special mission to England, with Mr. 
Webster as the one to fill it, or of a mission to China 
to which Mr. Everett, then minister to England, was; 
to go while Mr. Webster was to take his place. This 
has already been referred to and its failure. But 
March 27, 1843, J. Q. Adams, chairman of the house 
committee on foreign relations, called on Mr. Web- 
ster, who told him that he, Webster, had a private 
letter from Lord Ashburton. 

"They will take the line of the Columbia river, and let us 
stretch south at the expense of Mexico."* 

As everything in regard to this plan could not 

♦Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. 2, p. 261. 
•Adams Memoirs, Vol. 11, p. 345, etc. 



88 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

be arranged satisfactorily before the adjournment 
of congress on March 4, the president's idea was to 
have congress while in session authorize him, if he 
should think it best, to carry out the above plan in 
regard to Mr. Webster after it should adjourn. As 
we here see the consent of Mexico was not obtained 
until after congress had adjourned, but Webster 
Avorked on for the consummation of the plan, for. al- 
though the senate had refused to allow the special 
mission to England, yet it had authorized one to 
China and it was not until Mr. Everett declined to go 
there that Mr. Webster gave up his hopes of making 
the Oregon treaty. 

Still further we read : 

"Mr. Webster did have a commercial treaty on hand when 
he left the cabinet, and he did contemplate the cession of the 
northwestern part of Oregon to the Columbia;" also "there was 
a decided difference between the president and his secretary 
of state, as to the extent and nature of the proposed equivalent. 
Webster might have looked more at the commercial features 
which were to be the outcome of his negotiations in England, 

and the president more to the landed consideration 

Certain it is, however, that Mr. Tyler was very encouraging 
in his language to Whitman, his project agreeing precisely 
with the views he held, as to the ultimate settlement of the 
question and it was partly due to the warm support and en- 
dorsement of the president that Whitman was enabled to land 
two hundred wagons in Oregon, and accomplish at once the end 
contemplated by Linn's bill, and without a breach of treaty."* 

Prof. Bourne argues that if Dr. Whitman were 
in Washington he did not have any influence in the 

♦Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. 2, p. 439. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 89 

matter, for he says that Webster revealed it to John 
Quincj Adams March 25, and about the same time or 
later approached General Almonte, the Mexican min- 
ister on the subject, which Prof. Bourne says shows 
that Dr. Whitman's interview if there was any, had 
not had the slightest effect. That they had not the 
slightest effect with Webster is precisely what the 
evidence of Dr. Geiger and others shows. Hence 
Webster went on with his plans. Prof. Bourne also 
says in connection that Dr. Whitman arrived later 
than March 3 but probably not so late as the 25th. 
The writer's opinion from the evidence is that he 
was there about that time. He was at Westport, Mo., 
February 15, and at Boston March 30, according to a 
memorandum of his at Boston ; he was at New York 
March 28, according to a letter of his, now extant, 
which he wrote from that place to the government in 
regard to some claims of W. H. Gray against the gov- 
ernment; and the Weekly Tribune of March 30, 
speaks of an interview with him. This would evi- 
dently place him in Washington from the 20th to the 
28th of March. It was plainly after March 3, as in 
the letter which accompanied Dr. Whitman's pro- 
posed bill which was addressed to James M. Porter, 
secretary of war, he speaks of having been requested 
to prepare the bill by the secretary, and Mr. Porter 
was not appointed to that position until March 8. 

The above extracts answer plainly a statement 
made by those who deny that Dr. Whitman saved 
Oregon, namely that there was no danger of its being 
lost because there are no ofiflcial papers to be found 



90 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

which speak of it. But here we find that there were 
personal conversations and private letters of great 
importance going on in reference to government 
secrets but which were not official and so never laid 
before congress or made public. This has always 
been the case with the foreign affairs of our govern- 
ment. Hon. George H. Williams, of Oregon, at one 
time attorney general of the United States, was one 
of the commissioners to negotiate the treaty of Wash- 
ington in regard to the Alabama claims. When these 
facts about Dr. Whitman were laid before him he 
said that the stor^^ was strictly reasonable; that no 
record is made of a treaty until negotiated and ap- 
proved by the president, and that cabinet officers and 
foreign ministers negotiate treaties for the president 
and congress to approve.* This being so, if a treaty 
had secretly been under consideration to which Web- 
ster had given his consent but which the president 
had not approved, though he was seriously thinking 
of doing so, and if then the promise of Dr. Whitman 
to take an emigration with wagons to Oregon stopped 
the president, no papers in reference to such treaty 
would probably ever be found. 

The above has however been found, because John 
Quincy Adams wormed it out of Mr. Webster during 
a three hours' interview, or probably it would not 
now be known. Mr. Adams gives this account of it 
under date of March 25, 1843, on which day he called 
on Mr. Webster; he says: 

*Oregoiuaii, June 1, 1895. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 91 

"I spoke of the senate bill for the occupation of the Oregon 
territory, of Captain Catesby Jones' exploit at Monterey, of 
the movements in and about Texas, and I suddenly asked him 
If Waddy Thompson [U. S. minister to Mexico] had been in- 
structed to negotiate for the acquisition of California. He fal- 
tered and said he did not know whether he could answer that 
question consistently with his official duty. I told him his de- 
clining to answer was enough for me, and we had warm and al- 
most — not quite angry words. I kept my temper but pressed 
him more closely, upon his declining to answer my question, 
than was comfortable to him. He had begun by professing 
profound confidence in me, and in communicating his own 
instruction to Edward Everett and Upshur's to Commodore Mat- 
thew C. Perry, had said he would open to me administration 
secrets. Why he should now stop short and roil himself up in 
mystery upon the plea of official duty, he did not explain . . . 
. . . I said I would not press him to divulge administration 
secrets that he was inclined to withhold, that he had volunteered 
the confidence of the administration secrets, and I could not see 
why it should be tendered on one point of the system of foreign 
affairs and denied on another." 



After some more talk on the Texas and the Mexi- 
can question, Mr. Adams says : 

"I replied with warmth till at last he told me that he had 
talked over the Oregon question with Lord Ashburton, [sum- 
mer of 1842] that England wanted to come down on the coast 
of the Pacific to the mouth of the Columbia river, and that 
the question had been put to him whether if a cession from 
Mexico south of our present boundary of forty-two to include 
the port of San Francisco could be obtained, England would 
make any objection to it, and Lord Ashburton thought she 
would not."* 

The remark will probably be made that this ac- 

•AdamB Memoirs, Vol. 11, p. 345. 



92 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

<ount thoroughly disposes of the oft repeated state- 
ment that Webster was about to trade off Oregon or a 
part of it for the Newfoundland codflshery. It may ; 
it may not. If all the adminstration secrets of that 
time have been divulged, without doubt it does. It has 
however taken until 1897, fifty-five years after Dr. 
Whitman went east, during sixteen of which there 
w^as a controversy on this subject, for the public on 
the Pacific coast to learn from either side these facts 
about the tripartite plan. This being so there may 
yet be some administration secrets about Oregon not 
yet discovered. As yet the writer has been unable to 
find any particulars about the commercial treaty to 
which reference has been made, which Webster had 
under consideration in the spring of 1843. 

A letter of January 12, 1902, to the writer from 
Hon. S. A. Clarke, who is in the land oflflce at Wash- 
ington says that on request, H. H. Gilfry, who has 
been for twenty years legislative clerk of the senate 
has presented this question of the Newfoundland fish- 
eries ever being talked of as an exchange for Oregon 
to Senator Lodge of Massachusetts, who is well post- 
ed on all question of history. The senator's reply 
was that from the earliest time there has been a 
mixed controversy as to what was contemplated in the 
way of treaty with England, especially what was pro- 
posed when the Ashburton treaty was pending, and 
while he has often tried to ascertain more particulars 
of the questions pending in this connection it has 
been impossible to arrive at any definite conclusions 
-as to what turn negotiations took. This confirms 



REPLi TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 93 

what Judge G. H. Williams said that no records of 
negotiations pending are made until definite conclu- 
sions are reached and shows us that we are not cer- 
tain what was contemplated in the commercial treaty, 
and also that the fishery question may have been under 
consideration at some time and yet we know nothing 
about it. 

Still, if when the evidence of all that was done at 
that time shall be learned it shall be found that the 
results of Dr. Whitman's efforts saved Oregon from 
being traded off for California instead of for the New- 
foundland codfishery the honor to him will be just as 
great. 

It is not at all strange that there have been ru- 
mors on the Pacific coast about the codfishery trade. 
There was a fishery question which Webster had un- 
der consideration at that time. In a letter to his 
daughter, Mrs. Page, August 23, 1842, he says : 

"The only question of magnitude about which I did not 
negotiate with Lord Ashburton is the question respecting the 
fisheries."* 

There are said to have been rumors about this 
in connection with Oregon about that time;* and the 
question of the fisheries on the northeast coast was not 
settled until it was done by a treaty which was con- 
cluded June 5, 1854, and proclaimed September 11, 
following. Then again while Dr. Whitman was on 
his way to Washington, Webster was in private cor- 

♦Bourne, p. 82. Webster's Private correspondence II, 146, 
and Barrows, Oregon, p. 234. 

♦Nixon's How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon, p. 126. 



94 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

respondence with Lord Aslibiirton with reference to 
Oregon.* Dr. Whitman without doubt never heard 
of the tripartite plan, at it was an administration 
secret, and may have judged that the plan was to set- 
tle both the Oregon and fishery question in this way, 
and this may have given rise to the report of which 
Mr. Spalding wrote. This is simply a theory of the 
writer. 

One thing is certain however from the foregoing 
evidence, that there was great danger that at least a 
part of Oregon would be traded to Great Britain. 

If the claim made hj the friends of Dr. Whitman 
is not true, will any one answer the following ques- 
tion? October IS, 1842, Lord Aberdeen had through 
H. I. Fox, the British minister at Washington, con- 
sulted with Secretary Webster about resuming ne- 
gotiations on the Oregon question. November 25 fol- 
lowing, Mr. Webster replied, saying tliat the presi- 
dent concurrred in the suggestion and would make a 
communication to our minister in England at no dis- 
tant day. Not till October 9, 1843, were any more 
official communications, yet found, made on the sub- 
ject. Then Secretary Upshur, who had succeeded 
Secretary Webster July 21, 1813, wrote, October 3, 
1843, to Edward Everett, our minister in London, 
allowing him to tender the forty-ninth parallel again. 
Why now for nearly a year was no letter written 
which the authors cared to make public, when the 



*It was Lord Ashburton who wrote that England was willing 
to take the line of the Columbia and let us stretch south at the 
expense of Mexico. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 96 

president had said that at no distant day one should 
be, and that too at a time wlien the subject was by 
no means sleeping, either at Washington or among 
the people? The answer very naturally comes: the 
president wished to learn practically the success of 
the emigration of IS-^/S. 

In confirmation of this E. D. P. in 1870 wrote 
that an eminent legal gentleman of Massachusetts 
and a personal friend of Mr. Webster with whom he 
had several times conversed on the subject, remarked 
to E. D. P. 

"It is safe to assert that our country owes it to Dr. Whit- 
man and his associate missionaries that all the territory west 
of the Rocky mountains and south as far as the Columbia river, 
is not now owned by England and held by the Hudson's Bay 
Company."* 



E. The fourth objection to the Whitman story 
is because it was not publislied earlier than 18(34. 
jMrs. F. F. Victor said that nobody heard of it before 
1866; Governor Evans said, before 1863; Professor 
Bourne says, 1864. As far as the writer knows, the 
full story was first published in the Sacramento Un- 
ion in 1864. 



*This quotation has always been credited to the New York 
Independent of Jan. 27. 1870. but a search in the files of that 
paper fails to find it. The writer has the whole article, entitled 
"A Martyr to Civilization." It was found as a scrap of news- 
paper among Mr. Spalding's papers and is signed E. D. P.. or 
E. D. B., or E. D. R., for the last letter is slightly torn. The 
paper was dated January 27, 1870. 



96 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

There were three reasons why it was not pub- 
lished earlier. It must be remembered that the seed 
then sown did not fully bring forth fruit until the 
Oregon treaty was made in 1846; and that in 1847, 
when Dr. Whitman was killed, the missions were 
broken up. 

(1) One reason for not publishing the story 
earlier is that it would have been very unwise to 
have done so before the breaking up of the missions. 
The mission was entirely dependent on the Hudson's 
Bay Company for all its supplies. Far inland as 
it was, it could not have existed had the company cut 
off these supplies. On account of this the mission- 
aries were forbidden by the American Board to in 
any way interfere with the business of the company, 
"not even to touch beaver skins" as Dr. Gushing 
Eells once said.* To have proclaimed publicly 
what Dr. AYhitman had done might have so 
alienated the company that they would have cut off 
the supplies, for what he did do in bringing the emi- 
gration through resulted in taking Oregon from the 
company. The evidence however now is that Dr. 
Whitman did say something about this object of his 
journey before he started east, but afterwards be- 
came quite cautious and on his way back told it to 

*Prof. Bourne likewise says (80) quoting from Greenhow 
(p. 396) that a worthy missionary on the Columbia declared 
that "he would not buy a skin to make a cap" without the con- 
sent of the Hudson's Bay Company, who, he added, had treated 
him very kindly. Prof. Bourne thinks this may refer to Dr. 
"Whitman and it is very probable, as he was the only missionary 
who went east, who could properly be said to be on the Colum- 
bia at that time — 1845. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 97 

none of the emigrants of 1843 who would do much of 
their trading at Vancouver, the headquarters of the 
company, and only to a few trusted friends after his 
return. According to Dr. Geiger the Doctor 

"asserted that he was so anxious to prevent trouble and hold 
in check the hostility that would be natural in those who up- 
held British interests that he never alluded to his wish to save 
Oregon from British ascendancy, or conversed with any one on 
that subject on the journey."* 



(2) Mrs. Walker gives another reason. She says : 

"Much was said about that time about the Methodist mis- 
sionaries coming here, and then leaving their legitimate mis- 
sionary calling to make money and for other purposes, and 
some disgrace was brought on the missionary cause. Mr. Walk- 
er and associates felt that Dr. Whitman in leaving missionary 
work, and going on this business, was likely also to bring dis- 
grace on the cause, and were so afraid of it that for a long time 
they would hardly mention that object of Dr. Whitman's jour- 
ney publicly. I remember plainly that Mr. Walker often prayed 
after Dr. Whitman had gone, that if it was right for him to go 
on this business, he might be preserved, but if not his way 
might be hedged up. When the statements first began to be 
made publicly of this political object of Dr. Whitman's journey 
east, we were then afraid that disgrace would be brought on 
our mission."* 

To show that there was reason for this fear two 
quotations will be given, for while the writer does not 
say that they are just, yet they show what was said at 
the time. 

♦Oregonian, June 1, 1895, but the statement was made teil 
years earlier. 

*Eells-Whitman pamphlet, p. 11. 



98 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

Rev. C. G. Nicolay, an English writer, says of 
the missionaries, "On the Willamette they sink into 
political agents and would-be legislators."* Again 
Rev. S. Olin, a Methodist bishop, says : 

"The missionaries were in fact mostly engaged in secular 
affairs, concerned in claims to large tracts of land, claims to 
city lots, farming, merchandizing, grazing, housekeeping, lum- 
bering and flouring. We do not believe that the history of mis- 
sions exhibits another such spectacle," and he adds that "the 
mission became odious to the growing population."* 



These things having been written by Protestant 
clergymen, it is easy to see what remarks would be 
made by rough mountaineers and others who cared 
almost nothing for religion, however unjust they 
might be. Hence the wisdom of the reason given by 
Mrs. Walker for keeping silence as to Dr. Whitman's 
work. 

(3) A third reason why the story was not pub- 
lished earlier after the death of Dr. Whitman by 
Messrs. Eells and Walker is that they were not writ- 
ers for the press. Outside of their reports to the 
Board, which it was necessary for them to write, and 
some sermons and addresses written for delivery but 
published by request, the writer does not know that 
both of them ever wrote but one newspaper article, 
and that was a correction to some mistakes by a third 

♦Nicolay's Oregon Territory, Ed. 1846, p. 178. 
♦History of the Catholic church in Oregon, p. 13. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 99 

person, and none previous to 1864. To them it was 
a great task to write for the press. 

Mr. Spalding was however a willing writer for 
the press, but in 1848 the overwhelming thought in 
his mind was the Whitman massacre and its causes. 
He believed the Catholics to have been the prime 
cause.* To prove this was his great desire, and he 
published his views in the Oregon American and 
Evangelical Unionist. That paper suspended in 1849 
owing to the exodus to the newly discovered gold 
mines in California, before it had finished pub- 
lishing his articles. It was not long before Mr. 
Spalding sought other papers in which to publish his 
views, but in those days and for several years after- 
wards they were very few in Oregon and they refused 
him the use of their columns, knowing how severe he 
was against the Catholics, and not wishing to antago- 
nize that element. He felt it keenly and often spoke 
of it to his friends. Hence it was not until 1864 or 
1865 that he found a place to publish his views. Then 
he wrote of Dr. Whitman's trip east. Had Mr. Spald- 
ing lived fifteen years longer and heard it said that 
the story was not true because he did not publish it 
earlier, he would undoubtedly have thought it hard 
to be so blamed, when that was the very thing he had 
been trying to do for years. When he did so first in 
Oregon in the Albany States Rights Democrat, 
1867-9, he connected it with the whole history of the 
mission in so long a series of articles that at the re- 

*Prof. Bourne (28) says that he was "almost if not quite a 
monomaniac on the subject." 



100 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

quest of some of the subscribers they were cut short 
and discontinued. 

But although not published earlier the story 
was heard by many in early days. Soon after this 
objection was raised, the writer in 1885 sent letters of 
inquiry to a number of persons asking when and from 
whom they first heard the story. For want of room 
only a few of the replies can here be given, but the 
main points in each were published in the Oregonian 
of May 21, 1885. 

Said Dr. A. H. Steele of Olympia, w^hen told that 
Governor Evans said that no one before 1865 claimed 
that Dr. Whitman saved the country: "Mr. Walker 
told me that in Oregon City ten years before that." 

Judge R. P. Boise of Salem came to Oregon in 1851 
and said he heard from Rev. C. Eells that year the 
idea thai 

"Had not the missionaries been here in those early days 
and advised the United States government of the value of the 
country, it would have passed under the British crown, and the 
flag of the Union never floated over it."* 

Says Mr. G. F. Colbert, of Crawfordsville, Ore- 
gon: 

"As to the facts in the case about Dr. Whitman and his 
journej' east, I know nothing, as it all took place before I came 
to the country, but when Victor, Evans and Company say that 
nobody ever heard! that the Doctor's object was to save Oregon 
until 1865 or 1866, they are mistaken. I certainly heard Mr. 
Spalding tell all about it in the fall of 1852." 

♦Transactions Oregon Pioneer Association, 1876, p. 26. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 101 

Says Luther White of Brownsville, Oregon: 

"I became acquainted with Mr. Spalding in the summer of 
1849. Sometime in September following I had an interview 
with him. I asked him what he thought was the probable cause 
of the massacre. Mr. Spalding related the story of Dr. Whit- 
man's winter journey to the Atlantic states in order to secure 
Oregon to the United States, as perhaps the prime cause. I 
heard Josiah Osborne [who was at Dr. "Whitman's at the time of 
the massacre] tell the same thing in substance. I think Mr. 
Osborne said he received his information from Dr. Whitman. 
The conversation with Mr. Osborne was after the conversation 
with Mr. Spalding; I think in 1850." 

Sajs Mr. H. L. Brown, of Brownsville, Oregon, 
an emigrant of 1846 : 

"My first acquaintance with Rev. H. H. Spalding was in the 
winter of 1848-9, when he and P. B. WTiitman came to my house 
and remained several days, and to the best of my recollection 
he made the statement to me at that time that the object of Dr. 
Whitman's trip back east in 1842-3 was to use his influence with 
the authorities at Washington for the purpose of saving Oregon 
to the American people, and bringing a train of immigrants 
across the plains in 1843. I then went to California in the 
spring of 1849 and did not return home until January, 1850, when 
I found Rev. H. H. Spalding my nearest neighbor, and from that 
time on for several years I can positively state that I heard Mr. 
Spalding frequently relate that the main object of Dr. Whit- 
man's trip back east was to use his influence with the authori- 
ties as above stated and to bring immigrants across the plains 
to the Columbia river. And I can' further state that I was a 
member of the territorial legislature of Oregon in 1854-5 when 
I became acquainted with Hon. A. L. Lovejoy, who was a mem- 
ber of said legislature, when I heard him relate the story of 
the trip across the plains with Dr. Whitman in 1842-3 and to 
the best of my recollection his statement in regard to the ob- 
ject of Dr. Whitman's trip back east was substantially the 
same as that made by H. H, Spalding." 



102 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

Says the late Horace Hart, of Prescott, Wash- 
ington, an emigrant of 1846 : 

"In regard to the story about Dr. Whitman's journey east in 
1842-3 to save a part of this northwest coast to the United 
States, I will state that both Mr. Spalding and his wife told me 
of it in the fall of 1846 and I feel tolerably certain that I heard 
Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding talking about it in the winter of 
1847, while the Doctor was at Mr. Spalding's mission on the 
Lapwai." 

Other witnesses are Prof. Thomas Condon of 
Eugene, Oregon, who came to Oregon in 1853 and 
heard it that fall; Mrs. G. F. Colbert who heard it 
from Mr. Spalding in 1852 ; Rev. H. Lyman who came 
in 1849 and heard of it in 1850 or 1851 ; Rev. O. Dick- 
inson from Mr. Spalding and Dr. Atkinson about 
1857 ; Mr. James Blakley in 1849 from Mr. Spalding, 
and Dr. G. H. Atkinson some years before 1865. Mrs. 
Colbert went to Brownsville in the fall of 1852 to 
teach school, and while boarding round made her 
home in Mr. Spalding's family. She believes she 
heard the same statement as Mr. Colbert gives, pri- 
vately at this time, though she thinks she heard it 
previously in a sermon, which was the first time she 
heard it. 

Prof. Bourne does not like to accept such evi- 
dence because it is from memory about thirty-five 
years afterwards. It was not obtained earlier be- 
cause the statement that nobody ever heard the story 
before July 4, 1865 was not made until December 
26, 1884, during the controversy of 1884-5, and then 
by Mr. Evans. In consequence the writer at once tried 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 103 

to learn the truth about the matter and wrote to nine 
individuals, six of them on the same day, five of whom 
he never has met, and some of whom he had never 
heard of until a few days before he wrote. Some of 
these lived in the lower Willamette valley, some in 
the upper Willamette, fifty to eighty miles apart, 
and one in Eastern Washington more than three hun- 
dred miles from the nearest of the others. Several 
of these replies were dated the same day, others with- 
in a few days, hence they could not be charged with 
conspiring together to make the same statement. If 
any person does so believe, he has greater credulity 
than the writer. Such an amount of similar evidence 
ought, in the opinion of the writer, to convince any 
one that the storj was heard in Oregon long before 
Messrs. Bourne and Evans acknowledge. 

The statement of Saint Amant (above, p. 76), 
also shows that Dr. Whitman's national work of 
some kind was well known in 1851-2, for Saint 
Amant speaks of him as having been a very active 
agent of the American interests, and one who con- 
tributed in no small degree to promote annexation. 
If he did not refer to the work of Dr. Whitman dis- 
cussed in this pamphlet, the question is here asked 
to what work of the Doctor does he refer? If he 
learned this from the Catholic priests, it was publicly 
known. In the writer's opinion this statement of 
Saint Amant and those of the other persons men- 
tioned in this section, answer the statement of Prof. 
Bourne, that "the story first emerges over twenty 
years after the events, and seventeen years after 
Whitman's death." (7) 



104 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

E. The next objection is that Dr. Whitman 
did nothing worth mentioning to induce people to 
come to Oregon in 1843. 

Dr. Geiger's statement given above is that after 
the Doctor's interview at Washington, he sent back 
word to Missouri to those who wished to go to Ore- 
gon, and had the announcement of his prospective 
return published in the papers and in a pamphlet.* 

In order to settle this question as far as possi- 
ble the writer has been trying for nearly twenty 
years to learn what reason caused the emigrants of 
1843 to start. Thus far he has learned in regard to 
thirty-eight. It is not necessary to reproduce here the 
letters of those who were not influenced in any way 
by Dr. Whitman to come. They were Hon. Jesse Ap- 
plegate,Hon. Lindsay Applegate,A.Hill,Mr.Matheny, 
W. J. Dougherty, J. B. McLane, J. G. Baker, J. M. 
Shively, N. H. Sitton, Mrs. Jesse Looney, P. G. Stew- 
art, W. C. Hembree, H. A. Straight, D. S. Holman, 



*The objection has been raised more than once that this 
was not so because no such pamphlet and no such statements 
in the papers have been found. This to the writer is a feeble 
objection, for he has lived so long on the frontier that he knows 
that many pamphlets go so completely out of existence that 
some are never found and some only by the merest accident. 
It is almost or quite impossible often to find full files of the 
papers published in the forties. Even books go to the unknown. 
For example the writer has never seen Palmer's Travels over 
the Rocky mountains in 1845-6, a book of 189 pages, although 
two editions were published in 1847 and 1852; and yet he has 
tried to obtain a copy both in the east and west for nearly 
20 years. All he knows of it is from the testimony of those 
who have seen it. It is many more times probable that a small 
pamphlet of 1843 would go to the unknown, when those inter- 
ested in it could not well bring it to Oregon with them, for they 
had to leave everything they could, and those not interested; 
would throw it away. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 105 

William Wilson, S. M. Gilmore, H. D. O'Bryant, O. 
Brown, J. Atliey, Hon. J. W. Nesmith, Gov. P. H. 
Burnett and W. T. Newby, twenty-two. 

On the other hand sixteen, or more than two- 
fifths came because of the Doctor's representations, 
namely: Nathan Eaton, Charles Eaton, A. J. Hem- 
bree, J. A. Stoughton, P. B. Whitman, Nineveh Ford, 
W. ^lartin, J. P. Martin, Enoch Garrison, J. Zachary, 
(and several of his neighbors), Miles Eyers, E. Smith, 
Mr. Ricord, John Hobson, William Waldo, and Mrs. 
C. B. Gary. INIr. Waldo says : 

"Dr Whitman was in some of ttie eastern states in the win- 
ter of 1842-3, and wrote several newspaper articles in relation 
to Oregon, and particularly in regard to the health of the coun- 
try. These letters decided my father to move to this country, 
as he had already decided to leave Missouri." 

Says Mrs. C. B. Gary : 

"It was a pamphlet Dr. Whitman wrote that induced me to 
come to Oregon." 

Mr. Hobson says it was Dr. Whitman's personal 
talk that decided his father's family to come.* Mr. 
Stewart, already mentioned as not having been in- 
duced by Dr. Whitman to come, adds that a number 
of wagons overtook him after starting, who he after- 
wards learned were induced by the Doctor to come 
to Oregon. Mrs. Enoch Garrison said that they read 
circulars issued by Dr. Whitman that caused them to 
come. 



*EelIs-Whitman Pamphlet for several of these letters oa 
both sides. 



106 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

Prof. Bourne thinks that John Zachary's letter 
was doctored by Mr. Spalding because it said that Dr. 
Whitman in his pamphlet announced that he had 
taken a wagon to the Columbia. This would not be 
strictly true, though it was true that Dr. Whitman 
had taken his wagon to the waters which flow intO' 
the Columbia, or to the Columbia basin, and a wagon 
had been taken as near to the Columbia river as Dr. 
Whitman's station was, (twenty miles) before he 
left for the east. Mr. Zachary's memory was as like- 
ly to fail on this point as Mr. Spalding was to doctor 
the letter. But in regard to the letters written by 
these others, they were not doctored by Mr. Spalding, 
for they were not written until eight years after his 
death. 

Keference has been made (above, p. 10) to Prof. 
Bourne's remarks about the probability that these 
persons were induced to come because of the repre- 
sensations of Dr. White, instead of Dr. Whitman, 
getting the two persons confounded.* He says plainly 

*To the writer it seems very strange that any one should 
charge the emigrants of 1843 with confounding Dr. White with 
Dr. Whitman. They were entirely different men. The former 
lived in the Willamette valley with the settlers, the latter east 
of the Cascade mountains, distant from them. The former was 
a sub-Indian agent after they arrived, the only United States 
officer in Oregon, the latter a missionary. The former was in 
Oregon when they came, the latter came with them and aided 
them in finding the way. The former went east in 1845 unre^ 
gretted by very many, the latter was killed in 1847 and some 
of those emigrants fought and suffered to punish his murderers. 
The writer would as soon think of charging Prof. Bourne in the 
east with confounding Presidents Fillmore and Tyler because 
W. H. Gray in Oregon did for the reason that both had the 
same title to their names, as to charge the emigrants of 1843 
in Oregon with confounding Dr. Whitman and Dr. White because 
the Pittsburg Chronicle in the east did, for the reason that the 
first part of their names was alike. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 107 

that the recollections of all those who were children 
or 3'outh refer to Dr. White and not to Dr. Whitman. 
But the list of all the men over eighteen capable of 
bearing arms, of the emigrants of 1843, contains the 
names of all the above men except P. B. Whitman 
and William Waldo, while a Mr. M. Carey is men- 
tioned. (There is a slight difference in the 
initials of Mr. Stoughton, in one list it being J. A. 
and in the other A.*) The writer thinks that these 
persons, even those under eighteen, know much bet- 
ter who induced them to emigrate than did Prof. 
Bourne fifty-eight years later. 

J. G. Prentiss, a brother of Mrs. Whitman, wrote 
in 1883, of Dr. Whitman's anxiety to get all to go 
with him whom he came in contact with in Almond, 
N. Y., where he then lived, in West Almond where he 
lived in 1843, and on his way to Cuba, where his par- 
ents lived. Whitman would have it that his 

"parents, Judge Prentiss and wife, might endure the journey, 
and his solicitations outside of the family were just as urgent, 
portraying the beauties of the country to all that would listea 
to his story."* 

Prof. Bourne states that the emigrants did not 
have time enough to get ready to move unless they 
had begun before the Doctor's arrival (93). Mr. 
Evans is quoted to sustain this (104) in saying that 
"in those early days the Oregon emigration had to 
arrange in the fall of the preceding year for the next 

•Transactions Oregon Pioneer Society, 1875, p. 49-51. 
*Eells-Whitman Pamphlet, p. 34. 



108 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

year's great journey." It might be so with those who 
own the large residences in Connecticut, where the 
writer lived for nearly three years, but in the west 
where the cabin is sometimes not worth fifty dollars 
and all the household goods not over a hundred, it is 
quite easy to trade off a few things for another wagon 
or cattle, to sell a few, leave a few to be disposed of 
by relations or friends, give away a few, throw away 
a few, put the rest and the wife and children into the 
wagon and start! (The writer moved from Idaho to 
Washington on less than a month's notice, although 
three months before he had decided to live there per- 
manently, and had newly furnished his house. Be- 
fore he was twenty-one he had never lived in the same 
place five years and he is certain that generally his 
father moved inside of six weeks after deciding to 
do so, and one of his most important moves was on 
a week's notice. If the Professor had lived in Wash- 
ington since the Klondike excitement, he could have 
seen many a family get the fever and move to Alaska 
on less than a six weeks' decision. He has probably 
never heard the story of the western man who had 
become so accustomed to moving that A^ hen his chick- 
ens saw the wagon driven up, they lay down on their 
backs to have their legs tied so as to be ready to go ! ) 

Hon. L. Applegate, an emigrant of 1843, has 
constantly agreed with Prof. Bourne's side and so 
cannot be accused of distorting facts to prove that 
the writer is correct and Messrs. Evans and Bourne 
mistaken even on this point. Yet he says that 
the first movement of which he knows in getting 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 109 

up the emigration of 1843 was when, because of in- 
formation which he and his brother had received 
from a man who had crossed the plains previously, 
he put a notice in the Booneville Herald, of Missouri, 
about the first of March, 1843, to the effect that there 
would be an effort to get up an emigration to Oregon, 
and he says that about the same time there was a sim- 
ilar effort in the north part of the state. About the 
first of May they were ready to go.* 

Hence the evidence is that there was time after 
Dr. Whitman reached Missouri for people to get ready 
to go and that he did influence a fair share of the emi- 
grants to start. 



F. A final objection is that the Doctor's ef- 
forts to get the emigration through with wagons were 
of no absolute importance. The fact is, this w^as the 
important final act of his work. 

(a) Dr. Whitman wrote July 22, 1843: 

"No one but myself was present to give them the assurance 
of getting through, which was necessary to keep up their spir- 
its, and to counteract reports which were destined to meet and 
dishearten them at every stage of the journey."* 

Hon. Jesse Applegate, although not induced to 
start by the Doctor, says : 

♦Eells-Whitman Pamphlet, p. 27, which the author had sent 
both to Prof. Bourne and Mr. Evans before they published their 
statements. 

♦American Historical Review, January, 1901, p. 293. 



110 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

"To no other individual are the emigrants of 1843 so in- 
debted for the successful conclusion of their journey as to Dr. 
Marcus Whitman."* 



Although Dr. Whitman assisted them materially 
before reaching Fort Hall yet it was at that place 
that the real battle was fought for the emigration. 
To this place in 1840 Eev. H. Clark and associates 
had come with wagons, but they had left them there, 
because they were told it was impracticable if not 
impossible to take them farther. In 1842 the same 
misrepresentations were again successful with the 
first regular company of emigrants of 137 persons 
led by Dr. E. White. Even two years later, after the 
emigrations of 1843 and 1844 had taken their wagons 
through, Captain Grant worked hard to induce the 
emigrants to go to California, because of the dangers 
of the route to the Columbia river. But the emigrants 
of 1845 knew that those of 1844 and 1843 had taken 
their wagons through; those of 1844 knew the same 
to be true of those of 1843 ; but those of 1843 had no 
such precedent before them — in fact, no precedent 
but failure. 

P. L. Edwards came to Oregon overland in 1834 
as a lay missionary of the Methodist Episcopal church 
in company with Rev. Jason Lee. He afterwards re- 
turned to Missouri, became a member of the legisla- 
ture of that state and is spoken of by the editor of 
the New Era of St. Louis, as a man "who enjoys the 
confidence of his fellow citizens in an eminent de- 

•Transactions Oregon Pioneer Association 1876, p. 64. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. Ill 

gree." In the New Era of May 25, 1843, is a letter 
from him dated September 15, 1842, of two columns 
of fine print, in which he tells the emigrants plainly 
that in his opinion they could not take their wagons 
through to the Columbia river and should lay their 
plans accordingly. 

Dr. Whitman evidently realized as much as Cap- 
tain Grant did that here was the key to Oregon, and 
he proposed to unlock the door. It is doubtful 
whether any other man could have done so. He 
knew that in 1836 he had taken a cart as far as Fort 
Boise. He knew, accordins: to the statement of Hon. 
Elwood Evans, that in 1840 Dr. Robert Newell, Col. 
J. L. Meek, and two others, had taken three wagons 
to Walla Walla ; and, although Dr. Newell had found 
it so difficult that he had, on his arrival at Dr. Whit- 
man's expressed his regret that he had undertaken 
the job, yet Dr. Whitman had said to him : "Oh, you 
will never regret it. You have broken the ice, and, 
when others see that wagons have passed, they, too, 
will pass, and in a few years the valley will be full of 
our people." 

At an opportune moment, when Dr. Whitman 
was absent from camp at Fort Hall, similar discour- 
aging representations were made to the emigrants of 
1843. They were told that they must trade off their 
wagons or go to California. When Dr. Whitman 
came into camp he found them in a sad state; some 
in tears, some almost ready to accept the statements 
made, and some, according to Mrs. C. S. Pringle, his 
adopted daughter, were about ready to deal summar- 



112 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

ily with the Doctor for having induced them to come 
on such a trip. But he knew that "what man had 
done, man could do," and, at this juncture, is said to 
have addressed them substantially as follows: "My 
countrymen, you have trusted me thus far; believe 
me now. I will take your wagons to the Columbia 
river." 

Says Hon. J. W. Nesmith of this event: 

"Captain Grant endeavored to dissuade us from proceeding 
further with our wagons, and showed us the wagons that the 
emigrants of the preceding year had abandoned, as an evidence 
of the impracticability of our determination. Dr. Whitman was 
persistent in his assertion that wagons could proceed as far as 
the Grand Dalles of the Columbia river, from which point he 
asserted they could be taken down by rafts or batteaux to the 
Willamette valley, while our stock could be driven by an Indian 
trail over the Cascade mountains, near Mount Hood. Happily, 
Whitman's advice prevailed, and a large number of the wagons, 
with a portion of the stock, did reach Walla Walla and The 
Dalles, from which points they were taken to the Willamette 
the following year. Had we followed Grant's advice, and aban- 
doned the cattle and wagons at Fort Hall, much suffering must 
have ensued, as a sufficient number of horses to carry the 
women and the children of the party could not have been ob- 
tained; besides, wagons and cattle were indispensable to men 
expecting to live by farming in a country destitute of such 
articles."* 

Says Orus Brown : 

"I asked Captain Grant if he thought we could get through 
with our wagons; he answered, 'Yes, if you have a regiment ta 
each wagon.' "* 

*Transa<:tions Oregon Pioneer Society 1875, p. 47. 
♦Letter to H. H. Spalding of Jan. 16, 1868, now in possession 
of the writer. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 113 

H. D. O'Bryant says that he heard Captain Grant 
repeatedly make the assertion that the wagons of the 
emigrants could not reach Oregon; that it was a 
worthless country; that there was no timber on the 
Columbia river except driftwood, but California was 
a splendid country, and he advised the emigrants by 
all means to go to California.* 

Very similar testimony has been given by Gov- 
ernor P. H. Burnett and J. Baker about the affair at 
Fort Hall. 

As to the Doctor's assistance after leaving the 
Fort, it is best given in the words of Capt. O'Bi'yant. : 

"Now as regards the services of the Doctor, as regarded 
the then situation of Oregon, they were invaluable. The ser- 
vices the Doctor rendered emigrants before reaching Fort Hail 
were of immense value. From the Fort the journey commenced 
in earnest. This was the most difficult part of the way,* and 
the portion of country Captain Grant said the wagons could not 
pass and it was useless to undertake it; but in the face of all 
this, the Doctor brought the emigration, wagons and all, through 
safely, and I say without fear of contradiction that the ser- 
vices the Doctor rendered the emigration from Fort Hall to 
The Dalles were invaluable." 



Says P. G. Stewart : 

"The Doctor was of more service to us to that point [Fort 
Hall] than was our pilot. I do not know what we would have 
done had not Dr. Whitman told us how and where to cross and 
recross Snake river, and he saved us much time in getting 
through the Burnt river country; besides he sent an Indian to 
pilot us through the Blue mountains. Finally I would say that 

*Ditto of March 5, 1868. 

♦Bancroft's Oregon uses a very similar expression, p. 399. 



114 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

if Dr. Whitman did not get up the emigration of 1843 he fetched 
us safely through."* 

This emigration outnumbered all of the Hudson 
Bay Company employees and Red River emigrants, 
and showed our government that an emigration could 
reach the Columbia river, so that after that, the Am- 
ericans had no idea of allowing any of the country 
south of the present line, which divides Washington 
from British Columbia, to fall into the hands of 
Great Britain. It actually saved the country to the 
United States. 

Judge William Strong, in an address before the 
Oregon Pioneer Society in 1878, said : 

"The arrival of the emigration of 1843 may be considered 
the turning point in the history of Oregon. It gave the Ameri- 
can population in the Territory control of its civil affairs, at- 
tracted the attention and excited the interest of the citizens 
and public authorities of the United States in this then almost 
unknown land, and thus contributed materially to the determi- 
nation of the boundary question. It made Oregon of too great 
importance to permit diplomacy to trifle it away. It brought to 
the valley a large band of improved horses and cattle. It af- 
forded the settlers the means of making themselves at home 
in the country, and filled their hearts with hope of being again 
surrounded by American citizens."* 

And Honorable Elwood Evans, in a letter to the 
writer, says : 

♦Letter to writer of August 4, 18S7. Remember that these 
four witnesses, Nesmith, Brown, O'Bryant and Stewart were not 
influenced by the Doctor to start, nor were Messrs. Burnett and 
Baker. 

♦Transactions Oregon Pioneer Society 1878, p. 15. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE, 115 

"We zealously unite in ascribing to that visit the greatest 
results in the future of Oregon; the grandest services to that 
large train; the importance that flowed from his successful lead- 
ing of that train through to the Columbia with their wagons. 
Those results, those conclusions, are glorious to Dr. Whitman's 
memory." 

This determined which of the two countries 
should hold the country by right of settlement. Nor 
did its influence cease with the year's emigration. 
The success of this company in reaching Oregon in- 
duced another company to start the next year. Says 
Mrs. C. S. Pringle, who came in 1844, after speaking 
of Dr. Whitman's marking the route and guiding the 
emigrants of 1843: "So well known was this fact 
in the western states that Whitman and Oregon were 
the watch words of the emigration of 1844." 

There at Fort Hall the final conquest was made, 
which resulted in the United States obtaining pos- 
session of a good share, at least, of this Northwest 
coast. Previous to 1836, when Dr. Whitman came ta 
the coast, in nearly every contest which the Ameri- 
cans had had with the British subjects here they had 
been defeated. Several fur companies, among which 
were the Pacific Fur Company, with John Jacob As- 
tor at its head, the Missouri Fur Company, the Kocky 
Mountain Fur Company, Wyeth's Salmon Cannery 
and Trading Company, Captain Bonneville, and oth- 
ers, which swelled the number to eleven, had fought 
the battle with the Hudson Bay Company and retired 
defeated. The American Society for Encouraging 
Settlements in the Oregon Territory, with Hall J. 
Kelly at its head, had lost |30,000 and retired from 



116 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

the field. Astoria, built in 1811, before the Hudson 
Bay Company was he*e, and Fort Hall, built in 1834, 
by N. J. Wyeth, had fallen into the hands of the 
enemy. Thus, previous to 1834, every American ef- 
fort was defeated. In that year Rev. Jason Lee and 
others crossed the continent, and, though it was not 
in their first plan, actually began a settlement in the 
Willamette, which greatly assisted in the final vic- 
tory. The same year Rev. Samuel Parker began to 
arouse the Congregational and Presbyterian churches 
and the American Board of Commissioners for For- 
eign Missions in regard to missions on this coast, and 
the next winter found Dr. Whitman and interested 
him in the work. Then it was that the tide began to 
turn in favor of the United States. In 1836, when 
Mrs. Spalding and Mrs. Whitman crossed the Rocky 
mountains, the first white women who ever did so, 
it was a victory. When, during the same journey. 
Dr. Whitman brought the first wagon that ever broke 
the sagebrush from the Rocky mountains to Fort 
Boise, it was another victory. When, four years 
later, Dr. Robert Newell and company took three 
wagons to Walla Walla, the enemy was again over- 
come. When, again. Dr. Whitman made his journey 
east in 1843 through terrible suffering, and gave such 
information at Washington that the opinions of the 
rulers as to the value of the country and the possi- 
bility of reaching it with wagons were changed, still 
another victory was won. But the results of all these 
would have been well nigh or completely lost had 
Captain Grant at Fort Hall induced the emigration 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 117 

of 1843 to do as he wished. There was no flourish of 
trumpets or sound of drums, no rattle of musketry or 
roar of cannon at that battle. The contest was sim- 
ply between two men, and was a battle of brains and 
diplomacy, but the results of it were greater than 
oftentimes when many thousands have been slain. 
Each of the parties felt in a measure the responsibil- 
ity, and Whitman won. 

Fort Hall had been built nine years previous by 
an American, but in the contest between the trading 
companies quickly fell into the hands of the British. 
Now it was the scene of another contest, when set- 
tlements, not furs, were at stake, and the Americans 
gained the victory. All that was done after this waa 
simply to gather up the spoils and make the treaty 
of peace. And when, in 1846, the treaty was signed 
between Great Britain and the United States, it waa 
simply writing in an official way what had been writ- 
ten de facto three years previous at Fort Hall. 

Says Dr. William Barrows: 

"In later days, when the spirit of war was aroused for the 
whole of Oregon or war, the question was raised whether it 
was to be taken under the walls of Quebec or on the Columbia. 
Neither was the place. Oregon was taken at Fort Hall; for it 
will be seen that from this time the grand result in the Oregon 
case was no longer an open and doubtful issue; only details and 
minor adjustments required attention."* 

Dr. Whitman took the same view of affairs, for 
he wrote to the American Board April 1, 1847, as 
follows : 

♦Barrows' Oregon, p. 249. 



118 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

"I often reflect on the fact that you told me you were sorry 
that I came (East). It did not then, nor has it since, altered 
my opinion in the matter. American interests acquired in the 
country, which the success of the immigration of 1843 alone 
did and could have secured, have become the foundation of the 
late treaty between England and the United States in regard to 
Oregon, for it may be easily seen what would have become of 
American interests in the country had the emigration of 1843 
been as disastrous as were the emigrations of 1845 and 1846," 
(both of those years his route having been abandoned for an- 
other.) 

"The disaster was great again last year to those who left 
the track which I made for them in 1843, as it has been in 
every attempt to improve it. Not that it cannot be improved, 
but it demonstrates what I did in making my way to the states 
in the winter of 1842-3, after the 3d of October. It was to open 
a practical route and safe passage, and secure a favorable re- 
port of the journey from emigrants, which, in connection with 
other objects, caused me to leave my family and brave the toils 
and dangers of the journey, notwithstanding the unusual severity 
of the winter and the great depth of snow." 

And again, October 18, 1847, about six weeks 
before his death, he wrote to the same Board : 

"Two things, and it is true those which were the most im- 
portant, were accomplished by my return to the states. By 
means of the establishment of the wagon road, which is due to 
that effort alone, the emigration was secured and saved from 
disaster in the fall of 1843. Upon that event the present ac- 
quired rights of the United States by her citizens hung. And 
not less certain is it that upon the result of emigration to this 
country the present existence of this mission and of Protest- 
antism hung, also." 

And in England the same view has been taken. 
A writer in the British Colonial Magazine said: 

"By a strange and unpardonable oversight of the local oflB- 



REIPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 119 

cers, missionaries from the United States were allowed to take 
religious charge of the population, and these artful men lost 
no time in introducing such a number of their countrymen as 
reduced the influence of the British settlers to complete insig- 
nificance."* 



Hence, Rev. H. H. Spalding was not far from the 
truth when he wrote that, when the rear of Dr. Whit- 
man's caravan emerged "from the western shades of 
the Blue mountains upon the plains of the Columbia, 
the greatest work was finished ever accomplished by 
one man for Oregon." 

Soon after reaching Waiilatpu he notified the 
secretary of war of the safe arrival of the emigra- 
tion in the letter which accompanied his proposed bill 
for the action of congress. 



Thus it appears, on looking at the evidence, that 
all these objections disappear, and that the story is 
not a romance or fiction when it is said that Dr. Whit- 
man saved Oregon to the United States. In saying 
this, however, the writer does not intend to disparage 
the work of others, which was of inestimable value, 
in saving Oregon. The work of saving Oregon was 
like a chain, of many links. If any one link had been 
broken, the whole would have been lost. Dr. Whit- 
man saved his one link, others saved other links. 
But the writer contends for Dr. Whitman because it 
has been denied that he saved this one link. Just how 

♦See Missionary Herald, Dec. 1866, p. 374. 



120 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

much of Oregon was saved, the writer has never de- 
cided, but for nearly twenty years has stated, "the 
whole or a part of it." The papers found in regard to 
the trade for California and Webster's statement 
point to that part north of the Columbia river. But 
the statement of Sir Robert Peel, Dr. Whitman's let- 
ters, and the ideas of Judge Strong and some other 
western statesmen point to all of the then Oregon. 



In conclusion it may be worth while to hear 
some estimates which have been given concerning 
Dr. Whitman. 

Says Hon. Archibald McKinley, who was in 
charge of Fort Walla Walla in 1842 : 

"He was a very superior man. His whole soul was devoted 
to civilizing and Christianizing the Indians. A true patriot 
withal, but not the sort that make fools of themselves." 

Says Hon. W. F. Tolmie, who, like Mr. McKinley, 
belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company : 

"With Mr. McKinley, I retain my high opinion of the noble, 
true-hearted Whitman." 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 121 

Says the Hon. O. C. Pratt : 

"Dr. Whitman was a grand character, a leading man, and 
one of great power wherever the lines of his life fell; and he 
impressed himself on his contemporaries in Oregon in a way 
never to be forgotten as long as any of them may live." 



Says United States Senator James K. Kelly : 

"While he was sincere and zealous in the discharge of his 
duties as a missionary among the Indians, yet he was all alive 
to the importance of securing Oregon as an American posses- 
sion against the claims of Great Britain. He was intensely Am- 
erican in all his feelings; a man of indomitable will and perse- 
verance in whatever he undertook to accomplish; whom no 
'danger could daunt and no hardship could deter from the per- 
formance of any act which he deemed it a duty to discharge." 



Says Hon. W. Lair Hill : 

"But only the pioneer missionary, Dr. Whitman, appears 
to have had clear views from the first of the possibilities of the 
Northwest coast, and its importance as a part of the United 
States. He and Thomas H. Benton were the prophets of Ore- 
gon." 



Says the Oregonian : 

"He was an energetic, heroic, far-seeing, self-sacrificing and 
thoroughly patriotic American citizen, and his name is embalm- 
ed forever in the history of the northwest. It falls to the lot 
of but few to win fame, and few there are who so well 
deserve it." 



122 REPLY TO PROFESSOR BOURNE. 

Says Governor Elwood Evans of the Doctor and 
his wife: 



"Pages could be devoted to the praise of their many good 
works. They were philanthropists, practical, devoted Chris- 
tians." 



Says Bancroft in his ''Oregon:" 



"The missionary. Dr. Whitman, was no ordinary man. I do 
not know which to admire most in him, his coolness or his 
courage. His nerves were of steel, his patience was excelled 
'Only by his fearlessness; in the mighty calm of his nature he 
was a Caesar for Christ." 



Says Prof. Bourne: 

"Marcus Whitman was a devoted and heroic missionary, 
who braved every hardship, and imperilled his life for the cause 
of Christian civilization in the northwest, and finally died at 
liis post, a sacrifice to the cause." (p. 100). 



These statements are a fitting reply to Prof. 
Marshall's statement that Dr. Whitman "was not 
-above a third or fourth rate man.'' (p. 232). 



ERRATA AND ADDENDA. 



Page 6, line 28. For (195) read (105). 

7, lines 3 and 4. For (291) read (231). 

12, line 24. Insert "disquieting" before "vox clamantis.'*^ 

20, line 16. For (23) read (231). 

20, line 29. For (229) read (228). 

40, line 15. Insert: 

In fact this is a principle of law, that the evidence of 
witnesses is not to be rejecte<i because they may be 
obliged to depend on their memories, even though many 
years may elapse between the occurrence of the event 
about which the testimony is given and the time when the 
evidence is given in court. For instance, if a murder is 
committed before witnesses and the murderer escapes and 
is not found for forty years, the evidence of the witnesses 
who can then be obtained is not rejected because of the 
intervening time, but is accepted as long as the witnesses 
shall live. It may be weakened because of the long time» 
but it is not rejected. 

46, line 15. For (289) read (85). 

51, second footnote. For p. 697 read p. 696. 

95, line 17. For E read D. 



Lk.. 



